Trust The Lord For That

And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” So she persuaded us. Acts 16:15

We often feel as this woman did that a little agreement from those we deem the Lord's champions will confirm our faith. If I'm judged okay by Paul or Luke or Peter, then I am good with the Lord. Of course the apostle Paul could no more see into my head than I can see into yours. When it comes to salvation, we need to trust the Lord for that. Yes, there are those times of doubt when it would be nice to see a Certificate of Salvation on the door of those who believe. We would in that case immediately disbelieve it because God does not issue those from His heavenly printworks. Faith is a thing that gets by without a lot of written proof. Which is kind of ironic since our main instruction on faith is the printed Word of God. We even desire to see each other's faith in action, and are often rewarded in that since... "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1) You're thinking that perhaps I used something wrong in there somewhere.

The woman did do one thing that we can and should do to show the Church our salvation and that is to be baptized. The woman asked the apostles if they thought her statement of salvation was genuine, and they did. This is not a bad question since the baptism we do is just a dunking in some water with some words and is something that could be done unfaithfully.

May your salvation and faith shine forth to the glory of our Lord Jesus!

Bucky