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"The breastplate of faith and love."—1 THESS. v. 8. "Your faith groweth exceedingly, and the love of each of you all toward one another aboundeth."—2 THESS. i. 3.
These expressions of the Apostle Paul show us the true connection between faith and love in the life of the Christian. Faith always comes first; it roots itself deeply in the love of God, and bears fruit in love to the brethren. As in nature the root and the fruit are inseparable, so is it with faith and love in the realm of grace.
Too often the two are separated. On the Day of Pentecost they were one. There was a powerful faith towards the Lord Jesus, with a fervent love to the brethren. The sum of the preaching on that day was: Believe in the Name of Jesus Christ, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And the natural result followed: "And all that believed were together, and had all things common." "And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul."
Alas, that this should not have been wholly the case at the Reformation. A powerful reformation took place in regard to the doctrine of faith, but at the same time what a lack of love there was between the preachers and the leaders in that faith! So the world was not taught the lesson that Gods love was all-powerful to sanctify the whole life of man!
Let this thought sink deep into our hearts: "The grace of our Lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love." As we cultivate faith in Gods love, our hearts will be filled with love to the brethren. The genuineness of our faith in the love of God must be shown by love in our daily lives at home.
May God help us from day to day by faith to be rooted in this love, that we may at all times be living examples of its truth and power, and so become a blessing to others.
Sovereign grace can make strangers into sons, and the LORD here declares His purpose to deal thus with rebels and make them know what He has done. Beloved reader, the LORD has done this in my case; has He done the like for you? Then let us join hands and hearts in praising His adorable name.
Faith is full of inventions. The house was full, a crowd blocked up the door, but faith found a way of getting at the Lord and placing the palsied man before him. If we cannot get sinners where Jesus is by ordinary methods we must use extraordinary ones. It seems, according to Luke 5:19, that a tiling had to be removed, which would make dust and cause a measure of danger to those below, but where the case is very urgent we must not mind running some risks and shocking some proprieties. Jesus was there to heal, and therefore fall what might, faith ventured all so that her poor paralysed charge might have his sins forgiven. O that we had more daring faith among us! Cannot we, dear reader, seek it this morning for ourselves and for our fellow-workers, and will we not try to-day to perform some gallant act for the love of souls and the glory of the Lord.
Little know we what sorrow may be upon the sea at this moment. We are safe in our quiet chamber, but far away on the salt sea the hurricane may be cruelly seeking for the lives of men. Hear how the death fiends howl among the cordage; how every timber starts as the waves beat like battering rams upon the vessel! God help you, poor drenched and wearied ones! My prayer goes up to the great Lord of sea and land, that he will make the storm a calm, and bring you to your desired haven! Nor ought I to offer prayer alone, I should try to benefit those hardy men who risk their lives so constantly. Have I ever done anything for them? What can I do? How often does the boisterous sea swallow up the mariner! Thousands of corpses lie where pearls lie deep. There is death-sorrow on the sea, which is echoed in the long wail of widows and orphans. The salt of the sea is in many eyes of mothers and wives. Remorseless billows, ye have devoured the love of women, and the stay of households. What a resurrection shall there be from the caverns of the deep when the sea gives up her dead! Till then there will be sorrow on the sea. As if in sympathy with the woes of earth, the sea is for ever fretting along a thousand shores, wailing with a sorrowful cry like her own birds, booming with a hollow crash of unrest, raving with uproarious discontent, chafing with hoarse wrath, or jangling with the voices of ten thousand murmuring pebbles. The roar of the sea may be joyous to a rejoicing spirit, but to the son of sorrow the wide, wide ocean is even more forlorn than the wide, wide world. This is not our rest, and the restless billows tell us so. There is a land where there is no more sea—our faces are steadfastly set towards it; we are going to the place of which the Lord hath spoken. Till then, we cast our sorrows on the Lord who trod the sea of old, and who maketh a way for his people through the depths thereof.
The question often comes, "Why didnt He help me sooner?" It is not His order. He must first adjust you to the trouble and cause you to learn your lesson from it. His promise is, "I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him." He must be with you in the trouble first all day and all night. Then He will take you out of it. This will not come till you have stopped being restless and fretful about it and become calm and quiet. Then He will say, "It is enough." 
When God is being good to us, He is working for us. He is supporting us. The Bible tells us that He supports our lot. When goodness follows us, we can be confident that the work of God is adding substantially to us. David says in the Psalms, ‘The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot’. What is our lot? Our lot has to do with the uniquely sanctified and separated identity that God has ordained for us. We often think of being separated as being set apart from something. However, we should consider what it means to be separated to our own identity and person. We might call this individual identity our lot. And God adds His goodness to it. He is showing us who we are and who we were created to be.
The psalmist said, ‘How great is Your goodness’. He then continued, ‘As for me, I said in my alarm, “I am cut off from before Your eyes”’. David understood the total otherness of God. By this we mean that He is completely unique and holy. We are different to Him and therefore separated from Him. In this way, we are cut off from Him. If we cry out to the Father, He supports our lot, adding to us and making us more than we were. This is the heart of the gospel. We don’t need a God in heaven who just likes us. Rather, He is changing us from one degree of glory to another. When we receive the goodness that God has ordained for us, we find capacity to walk and live in the unique identity ordained for us.
James, Peter and John were all apostles of stature and high reputation. Their calibre and standing was certainly evident when they recognised the grace in Paul and gave him the right hand of fellowship. Speaking to the Ephesians, Paul said, ‘You have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace
which was given to me for you’. We must firstly recognise the grace in
those who are the messengers of the word of His grace. If we do not have eyes to see, then we will not receive the word of grace as it is commended to us. Secondly, we must recognise the grace in our brothers and sisters. They are fellow bondslaves and deacons with us in the word of grace. In
human terms, this is quite difficult. We are all given to making comparisons
between ourselves. We must recognise the grace in others without threat or inferiority. By the grace of God, Paul instructed us not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought. With sober judgement we come into the secret place to receive from the Father.
In relation to these matters, we need to have sober judgement and give ourselves to seasons of prayer and fasting. We must diligently go the secret place where the Father gives to each one of us according to His predetermined will and purpose. We do not presume upon His grace as if His predestined will for us will guarantee an inheritance of grace. We must make our calling and election sure. God is faithful to His word, but we must be likewise. Like the great apostles, we should exercise ourselves to recognise the grace given to others. And in so doing, we commit ourselves to our brothers and sisters, trusting that they will recognise the grace in us.
hospitality until the fragrance of fellowship filled their households. Many others, of course, watched Mary’s outpouring and mocked the foolish waste of costly perfume. What a mixture the multitude of that day had become! There were disciples of John who believed in the Messiah, as well as others who had not received John’s witness. There were houses touched by the twelve and seventy, there were ‘Jews’ who believed, and others whose tradition was so offended that their envy and anger had been sorely provoked. There were those with eyes to see what was taking place. There were crowds ready to wave Him into Jerusalem, and just as ready to turn on Him, baying for His crucifixion. He announced that He is the Seed that would bear much fruit, if He ‘falls into the ground and dies’.
It is an amazing thought that God the Son laid aside His own glory which He had with the Father before the foundation of the world. He bowed the heavens and came down, leaving the throne of His glory. He passed through the sanctuary, humbling Himself all the way to the death of the cross. He went outside the gate and outside the camp. We are to go out to Him, bearing His reproach. It was not possible that any eye could behold Him, unless He was lifted up outside the camp. It is the word of the kingdom that reveals Him this way. God the Son emptied Himself so that He could receive all that the Father was laying down to Him. It is only in this way that we can, likewise, receive from the Father and from the Son. In the first case, Jesus accounted that He did nothing of His own initiative. He only did the things He saw the Father doing. He only said the things the Father had told Him to speak. We can rightly conclude that He was both listening and watching. It is no wonder that He has said to us that we should watch and pray. God the Son emptied Himself to an endpoint; that is, to the death of the cross. This endpoint has become the beginning for us. Unless He was lifted up before the eyes of all, we could not see and behold Him. The capacity to understand, see, and behold is implicit within the word of the kingdom. Hence, the parable of the sower refers to the four conditions of the heart. It is incumbent upon us to hear, to see, to understand, and to obey the word of the kingdom.
