Bible Studies

When God is real to us, we will trust him with both our past and our future. Then we will be able to live for the present. We will look to him for wisdom and strength. Only those who see the invisible can see the impossible.

Belief in God’s providence does not mean that God always answers our prayers affirmatively. He answers all our prayers, but he answers some of them negatively, and for the very best reasons.

Abraham’s belief, trust, laying hold of God was credited, reckoned, imputed, accounted, and attributed to him for righteousness. Now, this is the same man who had lied to the Egyptian pharaoh that his wife, Sarah, was only his sister. This is Abraham, the great man of faith—whose faith occasionally balked and faltered.

Our Lord Jesus was not a pessimist. He was, however, a perfect realist. He said that in the last days, people’s hearts would fail them for fear. He said there will be a time of trouble such as never was, a tribulation so intense that unless God shortened the days, no flesh would be saved. (See Luke 21:26; Matthew 24:21-22 KJV.) Jesus was a realist. Christians must be, too.

There’s a story of a shipwrecked sailor on an inhospitable island. He was dying of hunger. One day a box was suddenly swept to shore and he rushed eagerly to open it. But he fell back to the ground with bitter disappointment, because the box was full of gems and pearls. It was filled with riches that could not sustain his life.

Faith is the gospel’s chosen vehicle because faith has no virtue in itself. Faith gives all the credit to God. That’s because the moment we forget that we are paupers, on a pension from heaven, we’re in danger.