A Little Faith

[Paul]

It is not the quantity of your faith that shall save you. A drop of water is as much water as the whole ocean. In the same way a little faith is as much faith as the greatest. A child eight days old is as much man as one of sixty years. A spark of fire is as much fire as a great flame. A sickly man is as much living as a healthy man.

So it is not the measure of your faith that saves you — it is the blood that it grips to that saves you. The weak hand of a child that puts a spoon to his mouth will feed himself just as well as the strong arm of a man, because it is not the hand that nourishes them, it is the meat that nourishes him.

So if you can grip Christ ever so weakly, he will not let you perish. The weakest hands take a gift as well as the strongest. Now, Christ is this gift, and weak faith may grip him as well as strong faith, and Christ is as truly yours when you have weak faith, as when you have come to those triumphant joys through the strength of faith.

- Welsh

[Literalist-Luke]

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w40/litluke/y_goodpost.gif

[Paul Merritt]

Beautiful!

[Rainbo2]

This is great thanks for sharing it.

[CaiperLane]

:):

[JerRockson]

Good one Paul. Sadly, many preachers today are saying, "Have more faith in God and he'll make you rich." It's just pure de wrong. It doesn't matter how much faith you have, it's a matter of who you put your faith in. And of course, I've learned this by Josh Mcdowell from his book, "Don't Check your Brains at the Door." It's a great book.

[frisian1970]

Hmmm, nice thought but back it up with scripture. Not doubting you can, just imploring you to.

:)

[Paul]

Hey Fris,

The reason a little faith can save as well as great faith is because we aren't saved by faith, we're saved by grace. Faith is simply the means by which grace enters our lives.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." - Eph 2:8

Think of it this way...Let's say you and I get on an plane. You have great faith that the plane will bring us to our destination safely. But I have only just enough faith to get on the plane. I'm scared and full of doubt the entire time.

We both arrive safely because reaching our destination isn't determined by the amount of faith we have in the plane, it's determined by the plane's ability to get us there. We simply needed enough faith to get on board. The plane did all the work.

In the same way, we aren't saved by the amount of faith we have, we're saved by Christ's ability to save us. As Spurgeon once said, "A trembling hand can receive a golden gift."

Of course we don't want to remain in a place where we have such little faith. In our example my ride was much harder than it needed to be because of my lack of faith. That's not the way Jesus wants us to live our lives.

[frisian1970]

Hey Fris,

The reason a little faith can save as well as great faith is because we aren't saved by faith, we're saved by grace. Faith is simply the means by which grace enters our lives.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." - Eph 2:8

Think of it this way...Let's say you and I get on an plane. You have great faith that the plane will bring us to our destination safely. But I have only just enough faith to get on the plane. I'm scared and full of doubt the entire time.

We both arrive safely because reaching our destination isn't determined by the amount of faith we have in the plane, it's determined by the plane's ability to get us there. We simply needed enough faith to get on board. The plane did all the work.

In the same way, we aren't saved by the amount of faith we have, we're saved by Christ's ability to save us. As Spurgeon once said, "A trembling hand can receive a golden gift."

Of course we don't want to remain in a place where we have such little faith. In our example my ride was much harder than it needed to be because of my lack of faith. That's not the way Jesus wants us to live our lives.

Thanks Paul, that makes sense.