Dear Friends of “Dial Daily Bread,”
We talk much about "faith" and many have written books and preached sermons about it. But what is faith? The best definition I have found for "faith" is this: it is a heart-appreciation of the love [agape] of Christ.
We know that whatever faith is, it is something that the heart performs because we read, "With the heart one believes to righteousness" (Rom. 10:10). But just what is it that "the heart" does? The heart "chooses" to "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29).
It is not a workthat the heart performs--which "work" could be readily understood as having some merit (and for sure, our "carnal minds" would naturally seek for something to take credit for! (see Rom. 8:7). Faith is simply a response of the sinful human heart to the revealing, the pouring-out, of the love [agape] of Christ.
It's a positive response, not careless or negative in any way; the sinner immediately receives the gift of repentance for his hard-heartedness. Isaac Watts long ago said it well:
"When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride."
To "survey"--the exact, right word; but how do you "survey"? Quietly, alone, on your knees, every earthly voice hushed--TV, cell phones, all our electronics; you invite the Holy Spirit to enter into your thinking, your comprehension, to be your Teacher while you "wait" patiently "in school" before Him.
Psalm 27 gives the secret now that we want: "When You said, ‘Seek My face,’ my heart said to You, ‘Your face, Lord, I will seek [!].’ … I would have lost heart [fainted], unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living [that is, while I am still alive]. Wait on the Lord: ... wait, I say, on the Lord!" (vss. 8, 13, 14).
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 19, 2009.
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