Faith and the Righteous One

When I read yesterdays daily devotion by Martha Kilpatrick my heart was pricked. And throughout the day I was continually reminded of the message. In tomorrow’s post I will share my response to these nudges of the Spirit but today I wish to bless you with the devotion that inspired my reflections. I hope it encourages you as much as it did me as you will hear in tomorrows post.
John

For yet a little while,
And He who is coming will come.
Now the just shall live by faith;
But if anyone draws back,
My soul has no pleasure in him.
Hebrews 10:37-38 NKJV

Some 25 years ago, I was just reading along in my Bible when I came to that verse: The just shall live by faith. Suddenly it exploded and I saw what it meant. Everything, literally EVERYTHING is solved by faith. Faith is the access to every need, the solution to every problem. Just faith, only faith is our need.

I saw that faith was so simple and sure that all our feverish worry, fretting, and trying seemed ludicrous. And I began to laugh at the simplicity of it, the ease and certainty that faith was the way to live. I laughed and laughed. I laughed at humanity because the way to live was this single issue, this one need and I could see clearly that all is provided in God, freely given. And we make all of life so complex and impossible. We believe it is so!

For days I laughed with joy at the wonder of this glorious total solution: faith. I tried to explain it to another believer. She looked at me with a blank expression and I knew she didn’t see it. It was so simple, so clear and I could not stop laughing with the most outlandish joy.

The Righteous One

Of course, it faded. And for some years I had to go through trials to become the ‘just’ who COULD live by faith. It was not that I was becoming more and more ‘good’ – rather that I was going lower and lower, seeing my utter wretchedness. In time, through God’s great forgiveness, I began to have faith that I was righteous – righteous as a gift IN and FROM Christ. And all the scriptures that referred to the righteous applied to me! So long as I was IN Christ, I ‘wore’ and enjoyed HIS character in place of my complete deficit. All that time, without my seeing it, the Lord was making it possible for me to become the ‘righteous’ so that I could ‘live by faith.’

When you have nothing in yourself, then you have ALL in Christ and His faith is infused into you as an unearned gift and becomes your solution to everything.

Yet a little while, and the Coming One will come and will not delay; but My righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him.
Hebrews 10:37-38 ESV

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