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Here are a few thoughts on faith from John Bunyan’s Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ:
               

“Let me here give the Christian reader a more particular description of the qualities of unbelief, by opposing faith unto it, in these particulars:
1.  Faith believeth the Word of God, but unbelief questioneth the certainty of the same.
2.  Faith believeth the word, because it is true, but unbelief doubteth thereof, because it is true.
3. Faith sees more in a promise of God to help than in all other things to hinder; but unbelief, notwithstanding God’s promise, saith, How can these things be?
4. Faith will make thee see love in the heart of Christ when with His mouth He giveth reproofs, but unbelief will imagine wrath in His heart when with His mouth and word He saith He loves us.
5. Faith will help the soul to wait, though God defers to give, but unbelief will snuff and throw up all, if God makes any tarrying.
6. Faith will give comfort in the midst of fears, but unbelief causeth fears in the midst of comforts.
7. Faith will suck sweetness out of God’s rod, but unbelief can find no comfort in the greatest mercies.
8. Faith maketh great burdens light, but unbelief maketh light ones intolerably heavy.
9. Faith helpeth us when we are down, but unbelief throws us down when we are up.
10. Faith bringeth us near to God when we are far from Him, but unbelief puts us far from God when we are near to Him.
11. Faith putteth a man under grace, but unbelief holdeth him under wrath.
12. Faith purifieth the heart, but unbelief keepeth it polluted and impure.
13. Faith maketh our work acceptable to God through Christ, but whatsoever is of unbelief is sin, for without faith it is impossible to please Him.
14. Faith giveth us peace and comfort in our souls, but unbelief worketh trouble and tossings like the restless waves of the sea.
15. Faith maketh us see preciousness in Christ, but unbelief sees no form, beauty, or comeliness in Him.
16. By faith we have our life in Christ’s fullness, but by unbelief we starve and pine away.
17. Faith gives us the victory over the law, sin, death, the devil, and all evils; but unbelief layeth us obnoxious to them all.
18. Faith will show us more excellency in things not seen than in them that are, but unbelief sees more of things that are than in things that will be hereafter.
19. Faith makes the ways of God pleasant and admirable, but unbelief makes them heavy and hard.
20. By faith Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob possessed the land of promise; but because of unbelief neither Aaron, nor Moses, nor Miriam could get thither.
21. By faith the children of Israel passed through the Red Sea, but by unbelief the generality of them perished in the wilderness.
22. By faith Gideon did more with three hundred men and a few empty pitchers than all the twelve tribes could do, because they believed not God.
23. By faith Peter walked on the water, but by unbelief he began to sink.
Thus might many more be added, which, for brevity’s sake, I omit, beseeching every one that thinketh he hath a soul to save or be damned to take heed of unbelief, lest, seeing there is a promise left us of entering into His rest, any of us by unbelief should indeed come short of it.”

George Mueller

The Life of Trust

The question “What is meant by the prayer of faith?” is beginning to arrest, in an unusual degree, the attention of Christians. What is the significance of the passages both in the New Testament and the Old which refer to it? What is the limit within which they may be safely received as a ground of practical reliance? Were these promises limited to prophetical or apostolical times, or have they been left as a legacy to all believers until the end shall come?
            Somehow or other, these questions are seldom discussed either from the pulpit or the press. I do not remember to have heard any of them distinctly treated of in a sermon. I do not know of any work in which this subject is either theoretically explained or practically enforced. It really seems as if this portion of Revelation was, by common consent, ignored in all our public teachings. Do not men believe that God means what he appears plainly to have asserted? Or, if we believe that he means it, do we fear the charge of fanaticism if we openly avow that we take him at his word?
            The public silence on this subject does not, however, prevent a very frequent private inquiry in respect to it. The thoughtful Christian, when in his daily reading of the Scriptures he meets with any of those wonderful promises made to believing prayer, often pauses to ask himself: What can these words mean? Can it be that God has made such promises as these to me, and to such men as I am? Have I really permission to commit all my little affairs to a God of infinite wisdom, believing that he will take charge of them and direct them according to the promptings of boundless love and absolute omniscience? Is prayer really a power with God, or is it merely an expedient by which our own piety may be cultivated? Is it not a transcendent power, accomplishing what no other power can, overruling all other agencies, and rendering them subservient to its own wonderful efficiency? I think there are few devout readers of the Bible to whom these questions are not frequently suggested. We ask them, but we do not often wait for an answer. These promises seem to us to be addressed either to a past or to a coming age, but not to us, at the present day.
            Yet with such views as these the devout soul is not at all satisfied. If an invaluable treasure is here reserved for the believer, he asks, why should I not receive my portion of it? He cannot doubt that God has in a remarkable manner, at various times, answered his prayers; why should he not always answer them? And why should not the believer always draw near to God in full confidence that he will do as he has said? He may remember that the prayer which has been manifestly answered was the offspring of deep humility, of conscious unworthiness, of utter self-negation, and of simple and earnest reliance on the promises of God through the mediation of Christ. Why should not his prayers be always of the same character? With the apostles of old he pours out his soul in the petition, “Lord, increase our faith.”
            And yet it can scarcely be denied that the will of God has been distinctly revealed on this subject. The promises made to believing prayer are explicit, numerous, and diversified. If we take them in their simple and literal meaning, or if in fact we give to them any reasonable interpretation whatever, they seem to be easily understood. Our difficulty seems to be this: the promise is so “exceeding great” that we cannot conceive God really to mean what he clearly appears to have revealed. The blessing seems too vast for our comprehension; we “stagger at the promises, through unbelief,” and thus fail to secure the treasure which was purchased for us by Christ Jesus.

I was reading the Confessions of St. Augustine and came upon a passage where he describes the battle between the flesh and the Spirit working out in his own life. I found his description very insightful and helpful. He sums up the struggles outcome by saying, Thy love satisfied and vanquished me; my lust pleased and fettered me.            

Now when this man of thine, Simplicianus, told me the story of Victorinus, I was eager to imitate him. Indeed, this was Simplicianus’ purpose in telling it to me. But when he went on to tell how, in the reign of the Emperor Julian, there was a law passed by which Christians were forbidden to teach literature and rhetoric; and how Victorinus, in ready obedience to the law, chose to abandon his “school of words” rather than thy Word, by which thou makest eloquent the tongues of the dumb – he appeared to me not so much brave as happy, because he had found a reason for giving his time wholly to thee. For this was what I was longing to do; but as yet I was bound by the iron chain of my own will. The enemy held fast my will, and had made of it a chain, and had bound me tight with it. For out of the perverse will came lust, and the service of lust ended in habit, and habit, not resisted, became necessity. By these links, as it were, forged together – which is why I called it “a chain” – a hard bondage held me in slavery. But that new will which had begun to spring up in me freely to worship thee and to enjoy thee, o my God, the only certain Joy, was not able as yet to overcome my former willfulness, made strong by long indulgence. Thus my two wills – the old and the new, the carnal and the spiritual – were in conflict within me; and by their discord they tore my soul apart.
            Thus I came to understand from my own experience what I had read, how “the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.” I truly lusted both ways, yet more in that which I approved in myself than in that which I disapproved in myself. For in the latter it was not now really I that was involved, because here I was rather an unwilling sufferer than a willing actor. And yet it was through me that habit had become an armed enemy against me, because I had willingly come to be what I unwillingly found myself to be.
            Who, then, can with any justice speak against it, when just punishment follows the sinner? I had now no longer my accustomed excuse that, as yet, I hesitated to forsake the world and serve thee because my perception of the truth was uncertain. For now it was certain. But, still bound to the earth, I refused to be thy soldier; and was as much afraid of being freed from all entanglements as we ought to fear to be entangled.
            Thus with the baggage of the world I was sweetly burdened, as one in slumber, and my musings on thee were like the efforts of those who desire to awake, but who are still overpowered with drowsiness and fall back into deep slumber. And as no one wishes to sleep forever (for all men rightly count waking better) – yet a man will usually defer shaking off his drowsiness when there is a heavy lethargy in his limbs; and he is glad to sleep on even when his reason disapproves, and the hour for rising has struck – so was I assured that it was much better for me to give myself up to thy love than to go on yielding myself to my own lust. Thy love satisfied and vanquished me; my lust pleased and fettered me. I had no answer to thy calling to me, “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.” On all sides, thou didst show me that thy words are true, and I, convicted by the truth, had nothing at all to reply but the drawling and drowsy words: “Presently; see, presently. Leave me alone a little while.” But “presently, presently,” had no present; and my “leave me alone a little while” went on for a long while. In vain did I “delight in thy law in the inner man” while “another law in my members warred against the law of my mind and brought me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” For the law of sin is the tyranny of habit, by which the mind is drawn and held, even against its will. Yet it deserves to be so held because it so willingly falls into the habit. “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death” but thy grace alone, through Jesus Christ our Lord?

Thought this was a simple but instructive reminder of how to minister to those who are hurting.

Doug Wolter, a pastor in Humboldt, Iowa, who is leading his church through a tragedy in their town after two high school graduates were killed in a car accident. Sometimes aacronyms can be helpful as prompts for us to remember basic truths that can be easy to forget. Here is what Doug offers:

H – Hope, not answers. When people are in the midst of suffering, they need hope more than answers. Hope is not found in solving the problem, but running to a person: Jesus. We may not know why everything happens, but we can hope in the person who understands suffering more than anyone and sympathizes with us in it.

E – Enter into their pain; empathize with them. Did you know that grieving with someone can be the single most helpful expression of love and care? Weep with them. Just be there for them and be with them.

L – Listen to them and love them in tangible ways. Seek to understand their situation. James 1:19 says, “Be quick to listen and slow to speak.” If you must speak, tell them, “I am standing with you. I am grieving with you.” And love them in tangible ways. Make a meal. Offer a small gift. Spend time with them.

P – Pray for them and patiently walk with them through the long journey of suffering. In the deepest of suffering, some may find it hard to even pray. We can intercede for them and carry this burden. And oftentimes, after the initial help has arrived, we forget the one who is suffering over time. But this is when the church is even more needed. To patiently walk with them and be with them through the long road of suffering.