The New Life

The Power of God's Word.
the word comes faith. Receive the word simply
with the thought that it will work in you. Keep
yourselves occupied with the word, and give it time.
The word has a divine life in i^^self ; carry it in your
inmost parts, and it will work life in you. It will
work in you a faith strong and able for anything.
O be resolved then, pray, never to say, I cannot
believe. You can believe. You have the Spirit of
God in you. Even the natural man can say, This
word of God is certainly true or certainly not true.
And when he with a desire of the soul says, "It is
true; I will believe it," the living Spirit, through
whom the word is living and powerful, works this
living faith. Besides, the Spirit is not only in the
word, but also in you. Although you do not feel as
if you were believing, know for certain you can believe.^
Begin actually to receive the word; it will
work a mighty faith in you. Rely upon it, that
when you have to do with God's word, you have to
do with a word that can be surely trusted that it of
itself works faith in you.
And not only the promises, but a' so the commands
have this living power. When I first receive a command
from God, it is as if I felt no power to accomplish
it. But if I then simply receive the word as
God's word, which works in those that believe,—if I
trust in the word to have its working, and in the
living God which g^ves it its operation,—that commandment
will work in me the desire and the power
for obedience. When I weigh and hold fast the com-
1 Deut. zxxii. 46, 47 ;
Josh. i. 7, 9.
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