We have come across innumerable messages which signify the importance of holding on to our faith in our lives especially in these last days. I just want to reiterate the same through this blog post.

The Bible says that Jesus-like-faith is the cornerstone to salvation and to Christian life. I say Jesus-like-faith here because we tend to use the word these days in ways that mislead what it’s supposed to mean. Our faith in people is based on how well and how long we've known them. "I have faith in you" is something we say to someone to really just say "I think you can do this because I've seen you achieve a similar feat before".

But Jesus trusted his Father to raise Him from dead, something which never happened in the past and to forgive the sins of the entire human race with His sacrificial death. The Bible says that “He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth.” Isaiah 53:7. The result of that faithful act is historic which saved all humans from the clutches of death and gave us a way to enter eternal life.

The Bible is full of incidents of faith to inspire us in our Christian lives. Noah spent 120 years building an ark simply because God commanded him. He did not wait to doubt or think in all that time. He was relentless in his faith in God. Abraham went so far as to sacrifice his only son because God commanded him, an extreme example of how faith is boundless. "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead." - Romans 2:26. Believing in Christ but hesitating to act upon that faith is dead faith and is, at best, righteousness. Noah and Abraham demonstrated a dynamic faith that transformed into action. It is important that as Christians, we ask ourselves the question "Sure I believe in Christ but how far will I go for it?"

As I write this blog I recall the incident of the 40 martyrs of Sevaste. These were a group of forty competent, young, dynamic and God fearing soldiers. Yet they were harassed and put through a lot of trials. Their charge was that they did not bow down before the King for they couldn’t bring themselves to disobey God and bow before a human being. When the king couldn’t get them to submit them before him, he gave them over to a notorious commander. The commander continued to torture them until one evening when they were walking through a desert; he noticed a freezing lake in Sevaste. A notorious idea entered into his mind and he thought "surely now these forty men would budge". He gave a final chance to change their mind and surrender to the king failing which they will have to stand in the freezing lake with no clothes on until they die. As soon as he finished saying this, the forty men took off their clothes and started running towards the lake. The sun set and the night came on and it was cold like never before. The forty men started singing praise to God and asking Him to grant eternal life to all the forty men and that not one of them should be left. One of the guards who on duty noticed that there were angels in the sky with golden crowns for each of these men. Initially, he did not understand what it was about. But then he noticed while the other crowns were stable in their positions, one of the angels was going up and down with a crown. He was just sharing this with one of his fellow guards when one of the forty men got out of the lake and came over to the land. Understanding what just happened, the guard took off his clothes and joined the thirty nine others in the lake and died as a martyr for God. These forty martyrs are one such example who went all the way so to obtain the golden crown and enter the gates of eternity holding on to their faith till the end.

Let us hold onto our faith in these last days where lies are more convincing than truths and holding on to the worldly things are more and easily accessible than holding on to eternal things. Elijah had prayed for rain seven times 1 Kings 18: 43 but today we can make it rain on a particular area by the process of cloud seeding.

Dear ladies, let us pray and ask for His grace that all things happen according to His will in ours and family's lives and we live a life of faith which transforms us and being rightly called as Christians.

Sis. Jessie Don

God’s Love Missions Family

**please write back to us so we can share your joy in testifying the Lord for His mercy**