Introduction To Faith
Pastor’s Note: The Bible tells us that “without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” – Hebrews 11:6. What better way to grow and learn about faith than from the one known as the Father of Faith, Abraham. I hope this series will inspire and encourage everyone. God Bless!
SALVATION is by the grace of God, appropriated by faith in the promises of God and applied to the sinner by the Spirit of God. We are saved by grace, and kept by grace and are all received through simple faith in the Word of the living God. The Bible teaches no other salvation than this. No wonder then that the enemy of our souls seeks to corrupt the simple message of faith by the addition of all sorts of human works, religion, ceremony, emotions, and deeds of the law.
Within the past few years there has been a greatly accelerated increase in the number of cults and sects which preach grace plus works, and faith plus human effort as a means to salvation rather than the testimony of salvation. My prayer is that this series on faith may be blessed by the Holy Spirit in showing many the error of adding man’s efforts to the finished work of Christ.
The record of Abraham is especially used by the Holy Spirit to instruct us in the life of faith. Abraham is called the “father of the faithful,” and the “friend of God.” Abraham, however, is not an example of perfect faith, nor even of normal faith, but rather a picture of the average life that can be lived IN faith.
Genesis 11:31-32:
And Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran and dwelt there. So the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.
Here we are introduced to Abram, not yet known as father Abraham, who will be later called in Scripture the “friend of God” and “the father of the faithful.” We are introduced to the very beginning of the one who is to become the father of the nation of Israel and the spiritual father of all true believers who put their trust in the One true God; to this man who, with his descendants, is the subject of the whole Bible revelation; and who, with his son, Isaac, his grandson, Jacob, and his great grandson, Joseph, dominates all the rest of the book of Genesis. The importance of this man who becomes the Abraham we have come to know may be seen in the prominent place which the Holy Spirit gives to him in the very first book of the Bible.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 