Steps to Christ: Faith and Acceptance (Chapter 5)

What do you believe in?  What do you put your faith, hope, trust, andlove in?  The Bible defines faith as “the substance of things hoped forand the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).  That being said,what do you hope for?  I’m not talking about a new car or a biggerhouse, I mean what are your greatest and deepest hopes?  If you believein God, contemplate what evidence you have of Him working in yourlife? 

Ellen states that, “As your conscience has been quickened by the HolySpirit, you have seen something of the evil of sin, of its power, itsguilt, its woe; and you look upon it with abhorrence.  You feel thatsin has separated you from God, that you are in bondage to the power ofevil.  The more you struggle to escape, the more you realize your helplessness.Your motives are impure; your heart is unclean.  You see that your lifehas been filled with selfishness and sin.  You long to be forgiven, tobe cleansed, to be set free.  Harmony with God, likeness to him,--whatcan you do to obtain it?

“It is peace that you need,--Heaven’s forgiveness and peace and love in the soul.  Moneycannot buy it, intellect cannot procure it, wisdom cannot attain to it;you can never hope, by your own effort, to secure it.  But God offersit to you as a gift, ‘without money and without price.’ Itis yours, if you will but reach out your hand and grasp it.  The Lordsays, ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’ ‘A new heartalso will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.’ “(Isaiah 55:1; Isaiah 1:18; Ezekiel 36:26)

What I love about her statements here is that the peace that passesall understanding that God want’s to give to you is not something thatyou can earn or buy, but it is a gift.  Just like salvation, all wehave to do is simply believe it by faith. 

In talking about the paralytic who laid by the pool of Bethesda shestates, “he believed Christ’s word, believed that he was made whole,and he made the effort at once; he willed to walk, and he did walk.  Heacted on the word of Christ, and God gave the power.  He was madewhole.” In another book Ellen states that “many of us are waiting forGod to do for us, that which He has already given us the power to dofor ourselves” (source unknown).  What would our lives like like if wewere to put our trust in the promises of God. 

What I love time and time again throughout this book, is Ellen’semphasis that in and of ourself we cannot earn salvation or makeourselves better and that when we try to do it is in vain andmeaningless.  She states on page 51 of the Youth Edition of Steps toChrist that, “you cannot change your heart and make yourself holy.  ButGod promises to do all this for you through Christ.  You believe that promise.  You confess your sins and give yourself to God.  You willto serve Him.  Just as surely as you do this, God will fulfill His wordto you.  If you believe the promise,--believe that you are forgiven andcleansed,--God supplies the fact; you are made whole, just as Christgave the paralytic power to walk when the man believed that he washealed.  It is so if you believe it.”

So the simple question for you to follow the Steps to Christ is willyou believe His promises?  Maybe your response today is, “I believe,but help my unbelief.” If that is your prayer, consider yourself on thepath to eternal life walking each step with Jesus! 

Matthew
from da kitchen
New Haven, CT