Sola Fide- What this Denies

DAY 19- 3/19/17 FAITH ALONE- WHAT THIS DENIES
For by grace you are saved through faith and this not of yourselves so that no one can boast. 

All your righteousness is as filthy rags. Isaiah 64:6

Thoughts: Faith alone means that all good is secondary.  It is not that we are good and so God gives us faith.  It is not that we do some good and our faith pulls us up making us righteous the rest of the way.  It is faith alone- by itself that brings us salvation.  If anything was of ourselves we could brag and boast about it.  But in heaven we lay our crowns before the throne. 
     Penance- the idea that we can make up for our bad; doing good deeds to some how help ourselves or even another in their salvation is somehow wrong.  There were some who believed we could pray another into heaven.  We cannot pass our faith onto another- it is their faith that saves them.  The   Latin church criticized this idea saying that this degrades good works so that people will not try to be good.  But we do good not because we need to go to heaven, but out of gratitude to God.  Luther is purported to have said , we sin in our best deeds as well as our worst.  Bad motives affect even the good we do.  Calvin said, “The human heart has so many crannie where vanity hides, so many holes where falsehood lurks, is so decked out with deceiving hypocrisy, that it often dupes itself.” (Inst. 3.2.10)

Prayer: Lord, help me to appreciate that any good I do is not of me.  

Faith Alone- What this affirms

DAY 18- 3/18/17 FAITH ALONE- WHAT THIS AFFIRMS
Now faith is being confident in what we hope for and assurance of what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1)

Thoughts: Faith alone means that faith is important.  We should appreciate the gift of faith and to treasure, guard, and nourish that gift. 

     We should be careful not to wallow in doubt.  Doubt in itself is not is not a virtue- as worry is not a virtue.  The ability to live free of worry- being assured of God’s love and trusting in Him- is both freeing and develops love and hope. Faith and hope bring with them a sense of meaning and purpose in life. The idea of faith alone only enhances that purpose and confidence in truth and God.  Today many are missing this affirmation- and live to hear spin tickle their ears.  Faith not only leads us and gives us hope it also convicts showing us where we start to off the right path and calling us to repent and turn around. 
    Faith is tied to hope and love.  Faith makes hope real and gives us a goal to live for.  Faith is trust that the hope is not a false hope but a real hope.  Faith is tied to love.  Without trust, love would be shallow.  Faith develops deep and true love.  Faith in God enables us to love God in response to His love which gives us faith.
    

Prayer: Lord, help me to treasure the faith you give me and to let it grow in me.

Luther: The Holy Spirit is no skeptic.  He has written neither doubt nor mere opinion in our hearts but solid assurances- which are more sure and solid than all experience and even life itself.   

Today there are some who even say "the opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty."  This flies in the face that the definition of faith- above is certainty and assurance.  There is room to doubt.  Doubt is not a sin in and of itself but it can become a sin.  It is not a sin when we doubt what is not true.  It can become a sin when we trust in our doubt more than we trust in the Lord.  The emphasis of the certainty faith flies int he face of those in the catholic church who say that we can never find assurance in this life.  Luther and Calvin taught that assurance can be found as sure as anything in this life by the Holy Spirit speaking through the Word of God- when we believe and trust it.