Faith Archives - Make No Provision

Faith

Peter Walked Back to the Boat | Matthew 14:22-32

by Alan Sharpe October 11, 2022

Let other disciples sit in the boat, observing the action. You belong out on the water with your Savior, doing the impossible.

by Alan Sharpe October 11, 2022

business man looking at the city underwater

And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.
Matthew 14:32

Listen to enough sermons about Peter walking on the water to Jesus and you will hear a familiar refrain. Peter sank into the water because he took his eyes off Jesus. Peter sank into the water because he was afraid. Peter sank into the water because he saw that the wind was boisterous. Peter started sinking beneath the waves because he lacked faith, and doubted.

All of these observations are valid. Peter was afraid. He did start to sink because of unbelief. And he did do the correct thing in crying out, “Lord, save me!” But the lesson doesn’t end there. Most preachers focus on Peter’s sinking. They fail to mention what happened next.

Read of the account in Matthew 14 and you discover that, when Peter and Jesus got back into the boat, the wind stopped. But how did Peter and Jesus get from where they were on the sea back to the boat? T

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Faith

“Trust in God must be unreserved.” || Brother Lawrence

by Alan Sharpe May 12, 2022

God never tests us beyond our ability to endure . . . but , bestows on us graces that will enable us to endure as we show our acceptance of whatever He sends our way.

by Alan Sharpe May 12, 2022

Illustration of man climbing a rope in the sky, ascension surreal abstract concept

Along with this total abandonment must go a complete acceptance of God’s will with equanimity and resignation. No matter what troubles and ills come our way, they are to be willingly and indeed joyously endured since they come from God, and God knows what He is doing. This trust must be unreserved with no thought of reward, but inevitably God will reward the person who so believes and endures with graces and treasures far beyond any sacrifices or offerings he or she has made since He is infinitely good. Also, God never tests us beyond our ability to endure and, as a matter of fact, bestows on us graces that will enable us to endure as we show our acceptance of whatever He sends our way.

Excerpted from The Practice of the Presence of God: The Best Rule of a Holy Life, by Brother Lawrence. Public domain.

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Faith

“What an awful theory that makes a sinner think he’s saved.” || Catherine Booth

by Alan Sharpe April 30, 2022

May God save you from any such mock salvation as this.

by Alan Sharpe April 30, 2022

A man is either under the dominion of sin, or else he is delivered from it. If he is under the dominion of sin, what an awful theory is that which makes him believe he is saved. Could the devil have invented a more damning theory than that? And yet, alas! Alas! He allures millions to destruction through it, who otherwise would take alarm and begin to seek salvation. He says to all the qualms of conscience and the pangs of remorse, “You are all right, you believe this or the other, your faith is orthodox, you are safe,” frequently quoting separated or mutilated texts to back up his lying insinuations, such as “By faith ye are saved;” “he that believeth shall be saved,” “you are complete in Him,” etc.

This latter phrase has come to express, in numbers of instances, the most utter ruin to which the human soul can be brought. “Complete in Christ”–complete without any true repentance, without any offering of the heart, without the slightest change inward or outward “complete in Him,” while living without Him, and having no conscious connection with Him whatever; complete

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Faith

“This is the noose Satan uses to strangle sinners.” || Martin Luther

by Alan Sharpe April 18, 2022

This is the noose which Satan throws over the head of the poor child of man in order to strangle him.

by Alan Sharpe April 18, 2022

By the temptation of faith is meant that the evil conscience drives out of a person his confidence in the pardoning grace of God, and leads him to imagine that God is angry and wishes the death of the sinner, or that, in other words, the conscience places Moses upon the judgment-seat, and casts down the Savior of sinners from the throne of grace. This is the strongest, greatest and severest temptation of the devil, that he says: ‘God is the enemy of sinners, you are a sinner, therefore, God is your enemy.’ This is the noose which Satan throws over the head of the poor child of man in order to strangle him.

Martin Luther. Source unknown.

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Faith

“Faith is nothing apart from its object.” || Hannah Whitall Smith

by Alan Sharpe March 5, 2022

The virtue does not lie in your believing, but in the thing you believe. If you believe the truth you are saved; if you believe a lie you are lost.

by Alan Sharpe March 5, 2022

Your idea of faith, I suppose, has been something like this. You have looked upon it as in some way a sort of thing, either a religious exercise of soul, or an inward gracious disposition of heart; something tangible, in fact, which, when you have got, you can look at and rejoice over, and use as a passport to God’s favor, or a coin with which to purchase His gifts. And you have been praying for faith, expecting all the while to get something like this, and never having received any such thing, you are insisting upon it that you have no faith.

Now faith, in fact, is not in the least this sort of thing. It is nothing at all tangible. It is simply believing God, and, like sight, it is nothing apart from its object. You might as well shut your eyes and look inside to see whether you have sight, as to look inside to discover whether you have faith. You see something, and thus know that you have sight; you believe something, and thus know that you have faith. For, as sight is only seeing, so faith is only believing. And as the only necessary thing about seeing is that y

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