Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
Isaiah 55:1, ESV
"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
Matt. 11:28, ESV
The Spirit and the Bride say, "Come."
And let the one who hears say, "Come."
And let the one who is thirsty come;
let the one who desires take the water of life without price.
Rev. 22:17, ESV
In my wanderings about the house last week to fulfill my allotted walking minutes for physical therapy, I grabbed a book which caught my eye, one I hadn't read in a while, apparently not since 2008, as a museum ticket stub from that year marked one passage.
The book is Prayer, by Ole Hallesby, and it has taught me much. As I walked, I flipped through the sticky tabs, surveying the sections I had considered important on the last perusal. This one concerned faith, the current topic for Walk with Him Wednesdays, and truly I can't improve on it:
The essence of faith is to come to Christ.There is even more than one example in Scripture where the needy one was too helpless even to come; the paralytic let down through the roof by his friends comes to mind, and dead Lazarus, and the widow's son placed in the prophet's room until he came.
This is the first and the last and the surest indicator that faith is still alive. A sinner has nothing but sin and distress. The Spirit of God as made that clear to the sinner. And faith manifests itself clearly and plainly when sinners, instead of fleeing from God and their own responsibilities as they did before, come into the presence of Christ with all their sin and all their distress. The sinner who does this believes.
It is written, "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37). "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).
That was just what those people did who came to Christ and heard from Him these words before they departed, "Thy faith hath saved thee." All they did was to come to Jesus and plead their distress before Him, whether it was physical or spiritual or both.
Notice the simple, but unmistakable, mark of a living faith.
Such a faith as this sees its own need, acknowledges its own helplessness, goes to Jesus, tells Him just how bad things are and leaves everything with Him.
You and I can now tell how much faith we need in order to pray. We have faith enough when we in our helplessness turn to Jesus.
This shows us clearly that true prayer is a fruit of helplessness and faith. Helplessness becomes prayer the moment that you go to Jesus and speak candidly and confidently with him about your needs. This is to believe (p. 30).
Let those of us who can come, do so. If this finds some reader today too weak and weary even to come, may God bring someone to carry you to your waiting Lord.
(This is not to deny a cognitive element in faith as well but to remind believers that Biblical faith is not exclusively cognitive belief in revealed truth, though it is that, but also relational trust in the living God.)
Linking up with Ann and the Wednesday community...
