Category: Faith

My Sails

I have set my sails. All winds that blow shall drive me forward.

anonymous

Traveling Toward Sunrise by Mrs. Charles Cowman (1870-1960) P. 27
Daybreak Books / Zondervan Publishing House


With My Last Breath

And though I groan and writhe beneath my crosses.
I yet shall see through my severest losses
The greater gain.
“I will not doubt. Well anchored is this faith,
Like some staunch ship, my soul braves every gale;

So strong its courage that it will not quail To breast
the mighty unknown sea of death. Oh, may I cry, though
body parts with spirit,’I do not doubt,’ so listening
worlds may hear it, With my last breath.”

 

“In fierce storms,” said an old seaman,”we must do one
thing; there is only one way: we must put the ship in a
certain position and keep her there.”

This, Christian, is what you must do. Sometimes, like
Paul, you can see neither sun nor stars, and no small
tempest lies on you; and then you can do but one thing;
there is only one way.

Reason cannot help you; past experiences give you no light.
Even prayer fetches no consolation. Only a single course is
left. You must put your soul in one position and keep it there.
You must stay upon the Lord; and come what may-winds, waves,
cross-seas, thunder, lightning, frowning rocks, roaring breakers-no
matter what, you must lash yourself to the helm, and hold fast your
confidence in God’s faithfulness, His covenant engagement, His
everlasting love in Christ Jesus.

-Richard Fuller (1804-1876)
From Streams In The Desert Volume 1 Page 102 by Mrs.Charles E. Cowman


Faith On Earth

…when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

Luke 18:8b


Active Faith

An active faith can give thanks for a promise,
though it be not as yet performed;

knowing that God’s bonds are as good as ready money.
-Matthew Henry (1662-1714)

 

Passive faith accepts the word as true-
But never moves.

Active faith begins the work to do,
And thereby proves.      (Selected)


To Think Of Safety

 

 

These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold,

which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine
and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
1 Peter 1:7

“You ask me what I shall do if I am called by the emperor. I will
go even if I am too sick to stand on my feet. If Caesar calls me,
God calls me. If violence is used, as well it may be, I commend my
cause to God. He lives and reigns who saved the three youths from
the fiery furnace of the king of Babylon, and if He will not save me,
my head is worth nothing compared with Christ.

This is no time to think of safety.

I must take care that the gospel is not brought into contempt

by our fear to confess and seal our teaching with our blood.”

 

 

(Source: Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (1950)(Hendrickson, p. 167).