If you are going to live by faith, then expect your faith to be tested. A faith that can't be tested can't be trusted.
Interpretation
True faith is proven through challenges and tests.
This quote emphasizes that genuine faith must endure trials to be considered reliable. When one lives by faith, it's inevitable that they will face challenges that test their beliefs, and overcoming these obstacles is what strengthens and validates one's faith.
In practice
This quote is perfect for a sermon on the importance of faith in difficult times.
Nothing paralyzes our lives like the attitude that things can never change. We need to remind ourselves that God can change things. Outlook determines outcome. If we see only the problems, we will be defeated; but if we see the possibilities in the problems, we can have victory.
The ability to calm your soul and wait before God is one of the most difficult things in the Christian life. Our old nature is restless... the world around us is frantically in a hurry. But a restless heart usually leads to a reckless life.
People who walk by faith don't see obstacles, they see opportunities.
Hypocrisy means deliberately pretending. None of us lives up to his ideals; none of us is all that he would like to be or all that he could be in Christ. But that is not hypocrisy. Falling short of our ideals is not hypocrisy. Pretending we have reached our ideals when we have not - that is hypocrisy.
We have little control over the circumstances of life. We can't control the weather or the economy, and we can't control what other people say about or do to us. There is only one area where we have control--we can rule the kingdom inside. The heart of every problem is the problem in the heart.
When you and I hurt deeply, what we really need is not an explanation from God but a revelation of God. We need to see how great God is; we need to recover our lost perspective on life. Things get out of proportion when we are suffering, and it takes a vision of something bigger than ourselves to get life's dimensions adjusted again
Do not be afraid to cast yourselves into the arms of God; whatever he asks of you, he will repay a hundredfold.
I was freeborn according to the flesh; I am born of a father who was a decurion, but I sold my noble rank - I blush not to state it, nor am I sorry - for the profit of others. In short, I am a slave in Christ to a foreign nation for the unspeakable glory of the eternal life which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
To pray is to change. This is a great grace. How good of God to provide a path whereby our lives can be taken over by love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control.
Saving faith is the faith of God's elect; the special gift of God to them, wrought in them by his Spirit.
Most of us have hoped and prayed for something to happen a certain way, but it didn't. And when this happened, we had a choice to make: to react with offense toward God or to trust Him anyway.
Without Christ, not one step; with Him, anywhere!
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.