I Believe God
Gary Shepard

"Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me." Acts 27:25

Like the apostle Paul, my peace in every storm is in what God has said! Whether it is in the storm of realizing and feeling the danger of my sins or in one of the many stormy circumstances of life, it is the same, I rest in what God has said. If I am in doubt of what God says in His word in one place, what is to keep me from not believing what He says in another? Faith is believing what God says concerning what He has done and will do AND what He says that I am! If I were Noah and had lived in his day, could I have believed that I was what God called me? Would I have been what God said he was? Was it a future thing He spoke of when he said to Noah, "for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation."? (Gen. 7:1) Did God the judge of all the earth do right when He destroyed all the inhabits of Sodom and Gomorrah? Yes, they were unrighteous. Did He deliver "righteous Lot" because he was actually righteous then or not? (Gen. 18) If the Bible says that "the Lord is righteous," is that to be taken at face value but not that Abraham was righteous who was made the righteousness of God in Christ? Abraham who believed God, who looked by faith to Jesus Christ the Righteous for everything? What is justification but God declaring us righteous in Christ? The only righteousness there is for a sinner is that righteousness which is the gift of God, imputed to the sinner and received by faith. It is in Christ and only Him and the righteous have been so for a long time because God put them in Christ and sees them in Christ! This may not fit a man's theological timetable but it is what God says! Thank God, His people are what He says they are in Jesus Christ through His cross death and they have been since He made them the righteousness of God in Him. What amazing joy they experience when He reveals this to them by His Spirit through the gospel and enables them to believe! God, help us to believe what you say.