Faith for daily living

I was raised in a Christian home, but at an early age came to realize I had to trust Jesus for myself and so, after a neighborhood Bible study, I prayed with the teacher to accept Christ. My parents then explained to me that although salvation is a free gift, our lives should be lived in thankfulness and appreciation for it. But in my teenage years, I got away from it and began to doubt my eternal salvation, until one day I came to grips with it and realized I had to make sure, so I went forward in church and prayed for God to save me or make me sure of my salvation and I felt a real sense of His peace, and have never doubted since, but have been living in thankfulness. It doesn't mean I'm perfect. I still sin, but when I do, the Holy Spirit convicts me and I confess it and am forgiven (IJohn 1:9)

Many events in my own life have driven home just how easy it is to loose sight of what we say we believe. Just like Abraham of old who is known as "the father of our faith," we often try to bring about result through our own efforts. For those of you not familiar with narrative found in the book of Genesis, let me summarize. Abraham had been given the promise by God of having a son in his old age. God, in fact made a covenant with Abraham, sealing the promise in the blood of sacrificial animals. Typically this looks forward, for those of us who are New Testament believers, to the blood of Christ through which we are made partakers of God's eternal covenant. But, back to Abraham. Certainly after such a dynamic demonstration (Genesis 15) of God's covenant promise, we would think that Abraham would have not doubt that God would fulfill his part of the agreement. But, instead of waiting patiently on God as he should have done, he listened to his wife, Sarah, and tried to help God out, by having a son with his handmaiden (as was the custom of the day), since his Sarah was barren. He did have a son with his handmaiden, but that was a cause of much sorrow to him, and is the cause of much conflict even today. For, you see, this son, Ishmael, is the father of Arab nations. Oh, God was still with Ishmael and provided water to keep him alive after Sarah had thrown out the handmaiden and her son. But Ishmael was not God's first choice for Abraham. Thus, later, God did fulfill his promise and give Abraham a son through his wife, Sarah. That son, Isaac, is the father of the Jewish people. We are all aware of the Arab-Israeli conflict which continues till today. Yet, God was gracious, and Abraham is remembered today as the Father of the faithful, and in the hall of faith, Hebrews 11, his faith is mentioned but not his lack of it in that one moment of weakness. (Thus, I don't feel that I should share the particulars of my Ishmael experience with you, as I know God has put it in the sea of forgetfulness.)
Often we may be tempted to do what Abraham did and take matters into our own hands, instead of trusting God explicitly. But, this can only result in the production of an Ishmael, which, although God may still bless, will mean trouble for us and cause us to deviate for a time from our primary God-given goals and purpose. However, when that happens, we may be assured of God's grace in getting us back on track. May God ever keep us from producing Ishmaels. But if we do, may we run to Him for His mercy and grace and know that He is still in control and we will not be remembered by him for our Ishmaels, but for our Isaacs--the fruit of our faith.
Although this principle applies to the every day challenges we all face in life, it is never truer than in the matter of our eternal salvation. In Ephesians 2:8 and other places his epistles, the apostle Paul makes it clear that we cannot work our way to heaven. We get there only by trusting in Jesus and accepting his sacrificial death on our behalf-trusting in Him to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We can never be good enough to earn our salvation, which is why Jesus had to die, so that by faith in Him, we can receive salvation as the free gift of God. This should be the first and most basic exercise of our faith and from there we should be able to go on exercising it daily, expecting that, since God gave up his only son for us, he will surely give us everything else we need.(See Rom..8:32).