“But I Don’t Have Enough
Faith”
I often hear people say, “I am afraid I don’t know if I have
enough faith.” How much faith do you need in order to be saved?
The Bible does not teach that you are justified
because of your faith. Faith is not works.
Faith is nothing more than the
instrument to receive our salvation. Nowhere in Scripture will you find that we are justified on account
of our faith. The Scripture says that we are justified by faith or through faith. Faith is
nothing but the the channel by which this righteousness of God in Christ
becomes ours. It is not our faith that saves us.
What saves us is the Lord Jesus Christ and
His perfect saving work. It is the death of Christ upon Calvary’s Cross that saves us. It is God putting Christ’s righteousness to our account that saves.
Faith is only the channel and the instrument by which
His righteousness becomes mine (2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 4:24). The righteousness
that saves is entirely Christ’s. My faith is not my righteousness and I must never
define or think of faith as righteousness. Faith is nothing but that which
connects us to the Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness.
The whole emphasis on salvation by faith is clearly on the object of
our faith: Jesus Christ. Jesus saves! Faith does not save us. Jesus alone does that.
If we are saved at all it must be through faith in the
substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12).
Spurgeon once said, “It does not take a strong faith to save
you, just faith. The weakness of your faith will not destroy you. A trembling hand may
receive a golden gift.”
The object of our faith is the all-important thing
(Acts 16:31). Our faith must be
focused on Christ Jesus and His saving work on the cross.
He died as our substitute. We must trust in Christ to save us.
The righteousness that God has graciously provided becomes ours
through simple faith. Ponder over Romans 3:22, 24-25, 26, 28, 30 and observe the emphasis
the apostle Paul is making in these verses. Faith will not earn your salvation. If it did
then faith would be works and God would owe you something. Faith is essential because only
those individuals who put their trust in Christ will be saved.
The apostle Paul wrote, “The righteousness of God through faith
in Jesus Christ for all those who believe” (v. 22). Sinners are “justified as a
gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed
publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith” (vv. 24-25a). God did it this
way as a demonstration “that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has
faith in Jesus” (v. 26). You cannot boast if you are saved by grace through faith in
Christ, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the
Law” (v. 28). Moreover, “He will justify the circumcision by faith and the
uncircumcised through faith” (v. 30).
If you have never done so, will you believe on the Lord Jesus and be
saved today? “Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1).
Selah!
Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006
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