With Streams of Living Water”
Faith Matters
Recently, I heard first-hand the story of how a man came to believe in God i.e. as revealed to us in the unique person of Jesus. This man had been born into a well-to-do religious family. By the time he became a teenager and then into his university years, he was fearful of the sovereign God that his religion presented to him. He became more depressed as he realised that his beliefs gave no assurance that he would enter heaven. He knew that his life was less than perfect and although God might forgive him, then again he might not. The bottom line was that the best he could do was to try and do good things to compensate for the bad, but he saw a problem with this approach. ‘What was the exchange rate? If I told a lie what good thing would wipe this out?’ He didn’t know and no one could tell him. He was in despair and hopeless, believing that he was damned.
Now I don't know enough about this guy's religion to know whether his understanding of it was a fair representation of its beliefs. Nevertheless, the fact remains that how he did understand things left him in a very unhappy place.
To cut a long story short, he found himself talking to some Christians and they showed him this verse from the New Testament: ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us…’
For Christians, this is a well-known verse that shows how even when we mess up and let God down there is a way back. If we confess our sins and turn again to God, we can have assurance of full forgiveness. Interestingly, this friend said, ‘What hit me right between the eyes was that phrase “God is faithful and just”’. Until this moment, his understanding was that God, being absolutely sovereign, could choose one day to forgive and on another to withhold that forgiveness.
The declaration that God is faithful and just showed him that God was actually consistent with his own character, and so to be faithful and just one day and different the next was impossible.
The man was keen to learn more and soon became a Christian. He’d discovered how, because of Jesus, we can be assured of God’s consistency and faithfulness.
Stephen Richards
www.solidrocknews.co.uk
Faith Matters March 2025