Paul David Tripp - 40 Days of Faith

Day 35

Mercy means I am so deeply grateful for the forgiveness I have received that I cannot help offering you the same.

We all do it, probably every day. We have no idea that were doing it, yet it has a huge impact on the way we view ourselves and the way we respond to others. It is one of the reasons there is so much relational trouble even in the house of God. What is this thing that we all tend to do that causes so much harm? We all forget. In the busyness and self-centeredness of our lives, we sadly forget how much our lives have been blessed by and radically redirected by mercy. The fact that God has blessed us with his favor when we deserved his wrath fades from our memories like a song whose lyrics we once knew but now cannot recall. The reality that on every morning brand-new mercy greets us is not the thing that grips our minds as we frenetically prepare for our day. When we lay our exhausted heads down at the end of the day for much-needed sleep, we often fail to look back on the many mercies that dripped from Gods hands onto our little lives. We dont often take time to sit and meditate on what our lives wouldve been like if the mercy of the Redeemer had not been written into our personal stories. Sadly, we all tend to be way too mercy forgetful.

Mercy forgetfulness is dangerous, because it shapes the way you think about yourself and others. When you remember mercy, you also remember that you simply did nothing whatsoever to earn that with which mercy has blessed you. When you remember mercy, you are humble, thankful, and tender. When you remember mercy, complaining gives way to gratitude and self-focused desire gives way to worship. But when you forget mercy, you proudly tell yourself that what you have is what youve achieved. When you forget mercy, you take credit for what only mercy could produce. When you forget mercy, you name yourself as righteous and deserving, and you live an entitled and demanding life.

When you forget mercy and think youre deserving, you find it all too easy not to extend mercy to others. Proudly, you think that youre getting what you deserve and that they are, too. Your proud heart is not tender, so it is not easily moved by the sorry plight of others. You forget that you are more like than unlike your needy brother, failing to acknowledge that neither of you stands before God as deserving. Humility is the soil in which mercy for others grows. Gratitude for mercy given is what motivates mercy extended. Paul says, Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you (Eph. 4:32).

For further study and encouragement

Luke 6:2736; Matthew 18:2135

Day 17

God calls you to grow in your faith and then feeds you with the growth-producing nutrients of his grace and truth.

Are you growing in your faith? Do you care if youre not? Have you become satisfied with a little bit of Bible knowledge and a little bit of doctrinal understanding? Have you stopped feeding on the spiritual food of Gods grace even though that grace has not yet come anywhere near to finishing its work in you? Do you hunger for the grace youve been given to continue to do its transforming work in the places where theres evidence that theres more work to be done? Are you satisfied with being a little more religious or a little more spiritual? Could it be that you claim to be a believer, but are satisfied to have parts of your life shaped by other values? Does your relationship with God really shape the way you think about and act in your marriage, in your friendships, in your parenting, in your job, in your finances, as a citizen or neighbor, in your private pursuits, or in your secret thoughts and desires? As you examine yourself, are you able to be satisfied in places where God is not? Are you pursuing the grace that youve been given because you know that you regularly demonstrate that you are not yet a grace graduate?

When I think on this topic, my mind immediately runs to two passages:

So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvationif indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Pet. 2:15 )

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (Heb. 5:1114 )

Be honest todaywhich passage best describes you? Are you that ravenous baby who cant get enough of his mothers milk or the person who should be mature enough to digest solid food, but isnt ready? Remember, you dont have to defend yourself or deny the evidencethe grace of Jesus has freed you from that. The cross of Jesus welcomes you to be honest because all the places where you need to be honest have been covered by the blood of Jesus . And remember too that it takes grace to admit how much you still need grace. That grace is yours in Jesus .

For further study and encouragement

Hebrews 5:116:12

Day 1

Faith in Christ is not just about knowing the truths of the gospel, but about living them as well.

It is vital to know that faith is not just an action of your brain; its an investment of your life. Faith is not just something you think; its something you live. Hear these words from Hebrews 11:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. (vv. 17)

What is faith? Verse 6 is very helpful. Biblical faith has this foundationyou must believe that God exists. This is the watershed, the great divide. There are only two types of people in this worldthose who believe that the most important fact that a human being could ever consider and give assent to is the existence of God, and those who either casually or philosophically deny his existence. But intellectual commitment to Gods existence is not all that faith is about; faith means you live as though you believe in Gods existence, or as though you believe, as the writer says, he rewards those who seek him.

Faith is a deep-seated belief in the existence of God that radically alters the way you live your life. Now, heres the rub. Faith isnt natural for us. Biblical faith is counterintuitive and countercultural. So we even need Gods grace to have faith to believe in the existence of the one whose grace we so desperately need. And the grace is yours for the asking again today.