Study Desk

Do you forget about His loving-kindness to you? Do you forget how long He is waiting for you? You know that God is kind. He is trying to get you to be sorry for your sins and turn from them.

Those who keep on doing good and are looking for His greatness and honor will receive life that lasts forever.

Those who love only themselves and do not obey the truth, but do what is wrong, will be punished by God. His anger will be on them.

But God will give His greatness and honor and peace to all those who obey the truth. Both Jews and those who are not Jews will receive this.

The true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. The religious act of becoming a Jew must be done in the heart. That is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Law does not do that kind of work. The true Jew gets his thanks from God, not from men.

Yes, the Jews have much more in every way. First of all, God gave the Jews His Law.

Anyone can be made right with God by the free gift of His loving-favor. It is Jesus Christ Who bought them with His blood and made them free from their sins.

God gave Jesus Christ to the world. Men's sins can be forgiven through the blood of Christ when they put their trust in Him. God gave His Son Jesus Christ to show how right He is. Before this, God did not look on the sins that were done.

But now God proves that He is right in saving men from sin. He shows that He is the One Who has no sin. God makes anyone right with Himself who puts his trust in Jesus.

This is what we have come to know. A man is made right with God by putting his trust in Christ. It is not by his doing what the Law says.

The Holy Writings say, "Abraham put his trust in God and that made him right with God."

If a man works, his pay is not a gift. It is something he has earned.

If a man has not worked to be saved, but has put his trust in God Who saves men from the punishment of their sins, that man is made right with God because of his trust in God.

David tells of this. He spoke of how happy the man is who puts his trust in God without working to be saved from the punishment of sin.

Is this happiness given to the Jews only? Or is it given also to the people who are not Jews? We say again, "Abraham put his trust in God and that made him right with God."

He went through the religious act after he had put his trust in God. That religious act proved that his trust in God made him right with God even before he went through the religious act of becoming a Jew. In that way, it made him the early father of all those who believe. It showed that those who did not go through the religious act of becoming a Jew could be right with God.

God promised to give the world to him and to all his family after him. He did not make this promise because Abraham obeyed the Law. He promised to give the world to Abraham because he put his trust in God. This made him right with God.

If those who obey the Law are to get the world, then a person putting his trust in God means nothing. God's promise to Abraham would be worth nothing.

So God's promise is given to us because we put our trust in Him. We can be sure of it. It is because of His loving-favor to us. It is for all the family of Abraham. It is for those who obey the Law. It is for those who put their trust in God as Abraham did. In this way, he is the father of all Christians.

Abraham was about one hundred years old. His body was about dead, but his faith in God was not weak when he thought of his body. His faith was not weak when he thought of his wife Sarah being past the age of having children.