GOD FIRST ANSWERS FAITH, AND THEN CHASTENS FOR FAILING

GOD FIRST ANSWERS FAITH, AND THEN CHASTENS FOR FAILING

It is a great lesson to submit to difficulties which you have brought upon yourself without trying to extricate yourself from the difficulties, while judging that which brought you into them. If we cannot overcome where we are, we could not overcome anywhere. If we look simply to the Lord there is no fear but that we can overcome unless we are in a false position, and in that case overcoming would be to get out of it.

When there is true faith, God answers it independently of the walk, though He chastens for failure in the walk after He answers the faith. The nearer I am to the Lord the more plainly will He chide with me for failure; but what brings me near Him is my confidence in His love to receive and to succour me. It was faith in Peter after his failure to gird his fisher’s coat about him and cast himself into the sea to go to Jesus (John 21). He could depend on the Lord’s love, for He had often succoured him, and while the Lord answers his faith in meeting and receiving His disciple, He afterwards deals with his heart and conscience, and restores him fully.