NetChaplain
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- Aug 9, 2012
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We who are reborn are merely camping on low grounds until the High Grounds are reached; and for us, through the entirety of the journey since believing, “all things work together for good,” that is, to the reborn! This means we can consider all that we encounter from now on, esp. the difficulties, regardless of the degree and from where they originate, are being used for our good. This applies mostly to our faith in trusting God that He is unfailingly doing this, for our faith is now of the utmost importance, as “faith works by love” (Gal 5:6), thus the stronger the faith, the stronger the practical love.
I say practical love because it is the actual love, not just desired love. One’s desired love to God can be unlimited, but desirable-love-only is not actual, because only practical love is real. Faith is being used only in this life as our “hope” (not a hopeful hope but a knowing hope). In eternity we will only walk by sight, for faith and hope will no longer need to be; “hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why does he yet hope for (Rom 8:24)? Being “saved by hope” has not the sense that the hope we are given (same as “through faith” Eph 2:8) saves us; “not that hope is the cause of salvation, but the means by which souls are brought to the enjoyment of it; salvation, or glory, is the object of it” (J Gill).
I think the most pleasing of it all concerning God’s goodness to us is that it is not affected by what we do and say (which only shows who we are, not makes who we are), but by what God He already prearranged, “from everlasting to everlasting”!
I say practical love because it is the actual love, not just desired love. One’s desired love to God can be unlimited, but desirable-love-only is not actual, because only practical love is real. Faith is being used only in this life as our “hope” (not a hopeful hope but a knowing hope). In eternity we will only walk by sight, for faith and hope will no longer need to be; “hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why does he yet hope for (Rom 8:24)? Being “saved by hope” has not the sense that the hope we are given (same as “through faith” Eph 2:8) saves us; “not that hope is the cause of salvation, but the means by which souls are brought to the enjoyment of it; salvation, or glory, is the object of it” (J Gill).
I think the most pleasing of it all concerning God’s goodness to us is that it is not affected by what we do and say (which only shows who we are, not makes who we are), but by what God He already prearranged, “from everlasting to everlasting”!
