Faith and surrender

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Love is that grace of the Spirit that brings faith into active exercise; "faith which works by love (Gal 5:6)," and faith thus brought into exercise, brings every spiritual blessing into the soul. A believer stands by faith (Rom 11:20); he walks by faith (2 Cor 5:7); he overcomes by faith (1 Jn 5:4); he lives by faith (Gal 2:20). Love is therefore a laboring grace; "God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which you have showed towards his name (Heb 11:10)." There is nothing indolent in the nature of true love; it is not an inert, sluggish principle: where it dwells in the heart in a healthy and vigorous state, it constrains the believer to live not to himself, but unto Him who loved and gave himself for him; it awakes the soul to watchfulness, sets it upon the work of frequent self-examination, influences it to prayer, daily walking in the precepts, acts of kindness, benevolence, and charity, all springing from love to God, and flowing in a channel of love to man.

Octavius Winslow

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"Having begun in the Spirit," the believer is not to be "made perfect in the flesh;" having commenced his Divine life in faith, in faith he is to walk every step of his journey homewards. The entire spiritual life of a child of God is a life of faith, - God has so ordained it: and to bring him into the full and blessed experience of it, is the end of all his parental dealings with him. The moment a poor sinner has touched the hem of Christ's garment, feeble though this act of faith be, it is yet the commencement of this high and holy life; even from that moment, the believing soul professes to have done with a life of sense - with second causes, and to have entered upon a glorious life of faith on Christ. It is no forced application to him of the apostle's declaration: "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God." Let us briefly unfold some peculiar points of blessedness in this life.

Octavius Winslow

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Faith is a purifying grace: "Purifying their hearts by faith (Acts 15:9)," "Sanctified by faith that is in me (26:18)." It is a principle holy in its nature and tendency; he is most holy who has most faith; he who has least faith is most exposed to the assaults of his inbred corruptions. If there is in any child of God a desire for Divine conformity, for more of the spirit of Christ, more weanedness, and crucifixion, and daily dying, this should be his ceaseless prayer, - "Lord, increase my faith." Faith in Jesus checks the power of sin, slays the hidden corruption, and enables the believer to "endure as seeing him who is invisible."

Octavius Winslow

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We look for the fruit of faith, - the lowly, humble, contrite spirit - the tender conscience - the traveling daily to the atoning blood - the living upon the grace that is in Christ Jesus - the carrying out of Christian principle - crucifixion to the world - patient submission to a life of suffering - meek resignation to a Father's discipline - a living as beholding Him who is invisible - a constant and vivid realization of eternal realities, - we look for these fruits of faith; but we find them not. And why ? because there is the worm of unmortified sin feeding at the root; and until that is slain, faith will always be sickly, unfruitful, and "ready to die." "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live after the flesh. For if you live after the flesh, you shall die; but if you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live."

Octavius Winslow

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If we trust in our civility, we make it a god. Many trust to this, that none can charge them with gross sin. Civility is but nature refined and cultivated; a man may be washed, and not changed; his life may be civil, and yet there may be some reigning sin in his heart. The Pharisee could say, ‘I am no adulterer’ (Luke 18: 11); but he could not say, ‘I am not proud.’ To trust to civility, is to trust to a spider’s web.

Thomas Watson

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[1] We should keep the commandments from faith. Our obedience ought, profluere a fide ‘to spring from faith.’ It is called, therefore, ‘the obedience of faith.’ Rom 16: 26. Abel, by faith, offered up a better sacrifice than Cain. Heb 11: 4. Faith is a vital principle, without which all our services are opera mortua, dead works. Heb 6: 1. It meliorates and sweetens obedience, and makes it come off with a better relish.

Thomas Watson