Today's encouragement comes from Genesis 15:6, where we read these words:
"And he [Abraham] believed in the LORD, and He [God] accounted it to him [Abraham] for righteousness."This is (undoubtedly) one of the most important verses in all the Bible. Faith is absolutely necessary in order to please God (see Heb. 11:6). Saving faith in Christ leads to warm and devoted love for God. Love, then, results in sanctifi-ed and joyful behavior. But it is faith which not only ushers us into God's mer-ciful embraces, but also keeps us united to Christ.
The devil loves to get God's churchmen hung up on other things, like meticu-lously "perfect” living, for example. But all God requires of us is faith—which inevitably leads to love. The Lord would not be pleased with us, even if we had a 99.9% perfection rating (which none of us have); but He *is* pleased with us if we trust Christ truly and sincerely, even if it is less than 1% of what we ought to.
[Puritan quote of the day: "A person may know that he or she is a child of God and a member of Christ.” —Richard Sibbes, in "Glorious Freedom"]
