Reasoning Faith...Pt 1 of 2

God made our minds for knowledge & understanding

God made us for Himself. He made our minds for gaining knowledge and

understanding that we might avoid ignorance. Faith is a powerful force in the

life of the believer. It is an experienced and mysterious inclination of the mind.

Where faith touches the behavior of the adherent, though the effects are

profound, it is difficult to articulate. Now know this by reasoning faith. All

things that are possible and all things that are impossible have been

determined by counsel. And in that truth, nothing of God can change. Every

change that occurs is determined and the change is for our reasoning that

our faith may be that of Christ Jesus. This is the priceless truth of the

sovereignty of God. From the beginning we not import something that does

not come from the word of God. This matter is far too serious, and touches

on so many painful realities, that we dare not trust ourselves here to come

up with truth without being told by God Himself. God says “I am God, and

there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me.” So the issue in this

writing is the uniqueness of God among all the beings of the ever creation.

He is the highest all by Himself. No one is like Him. The issue is what it

means to be God. When something is happening, or something is being said

or thought, and God responds, “I am God!”, the point He is making is this:

you’re acting like you don’t know what it means for me to be God. Reasoning

faith is that of God. It’s at the heart of His God-ness. It is He who says,

“Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that

are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my

pleasure”.

God knows what these doings will be, long before they are done.

All of our reasoning faith must be in His foreknowledge. And the way He

declares His foreknowledge is by declaring His fore-counsel and His fore-

purposing. Which means that the reason God knows there will be a change

in anything is because He plans the change and accomplishes it. He

purposes them and He performs them and He takes responsibility. By the

sovereignty of God: God has the rightful authority, the freedom, the wisdom,

and the power to bring about everything that He intends to happen. And

God purposes it

therefore, everything He intends to come about, does come about. Which

means, God plans and governs all things. When God says “I change not”,

that which is a change is His determined purpose already known. Even a

repenting of what He thought to do is not a change to Him. But it is the

change purposed for us to know Him better by faith as we reason with His

purpose for doing it. Now, if that seems too complicated, so that you don’t

think I am expressing a private opinion of my own, search and reason with

other scripture purporting change to see if they were determined in counsel.

You ready?…faith in a God who says He changes not where the word says

He is a Spirit and yet a body of flesh was prepared Him. Now you have to

have a consecrated attitude, divine giftedness, a humble mindset, to accept

this strongly transformative miracle.

It is by reasoning that God affirms my faith. I believe that God, from all

eternity, in order to display the full extent of His glory for the eternal and ever-

increasing satisfaction of all who love Him, did, by the most wise and holy

counsel of His will, freely and unchangeably ordain and foreknow whatever

comes to pass. I believe that God upholds and governs all things — from

galaxies to subatomic particles, from the forces of nature to the movements

politicians

of nations, and from the public plans of politicians to the secret acts of solitary

persons — all in accord with His eternal, all-wise purposes to glorify Himself,

yet in such a way that He never compromises truth, nor ever condemns a

person unjustly; but that His ordaining and governing all things is compatible

with the moral accountability of all persons created in His image. I believe

that God’s election is an unconditional act of free grace which was given

through His Son Christ Jesus before the world began. By this act God chose,

before the foundation of the world, those who would be delivered from

bondage to sin and brought to repentance and saving faith in His Son Christ

Jesus. These are His called to election by and for His purpose.

As we reason, we may be overwhelmed at the extent of God’s sovereignty

because it is higher than our understanding. But by faith we will praise His

power and grace, and bow with glad submission to the absolute will of

God. We will see in the sovereignty of God our only hope for life in our

deadness, our only hope for answers to our prayers, our only hope for

success in our personal witness, our only hope for meaning in our suffering.

And we will know insistantly that there is a better hope. God has given us a

will. How we use it makes our eternal difference. The divine providence

orders and directs those things which to us are perfectly casual and

unexpected. Nothing comes to pass by chance, nor is an event determined

by a blind fortune, but every thing by the will and counsel of God. What we

have, neither eye nor hand in God is intimately concerned in and with. Think

about when we make solemn appeals to God for the deciding of a matter of

the moment which could not otherwise be at all, or not so well decided, God

must be eyed in it, by prayer, that it may be disposed rightly and by

consenting, and accepting in it when it is arranged, being satisfied that the

hand of God is in it, and that hand directed by His infinite wisdom. All the

disposals of providence concerning our affairs we must look upon to be the

directing of our lot, the determining of what we referred to God, and we must

be reconciled to them accordingly. There are no events so small that God

does not rule for His purposes. Let there be no man-exalting illusion as though

we are the decisive cause for a purpose.

God removes and sets up kings

God alone will have that supreme role. He changes times and seasons; He removes kings and sets up kings; He changes events as they were determined to be changed for

purpose. And for our understanding of His purposes He calls us to come to

reason with Him, and for this reason, God gifted us with the measure of faith.

I pray that we know this: we will never be sovereign, but we will be governed.

When the nations came to do their absolute worst, namely the murder of the

Son of God, Jesus Christ, they had not slipped out of God’s control, but were

doing His sweetest bidding at their worst moment. The worst sin that ever

happened was in God’s determined purposed plan, and by that sin, sin died.

There may have been a thousand horrible things in our life. But if today we

are moved to treasure Christ as our Lord and Savior, we can write over every

one of those horrors the words “what was thought evil against me; God

meant it unto good”. Our reasoning faith is real. We stand in awe of the

sovereign authority and freedom and wisdom and power of God. We never

trifle with life as though it were a small or light affair. We know we are not our

own. We are calm in these days of great upheaval because faith belongs to

God, and by reason of His love He has given us of this faith.