The just shall live by faith. Rom. 1:17.

Ever since Adam and Eve sought life apart from dependence on their Maker, man has been self-determined, not subject to the law of God or to the perfect righteousness provided by another, Jesus Christ. This continues our separation from God. We are dead in trespasses and sins. Regardless of how good or how bad we might consider ourselves, anything that keeps us apart from God, even trust in our own righteousness and good works, continues the original sin of Adam.

Men are not willing to come to terms with their own bankruptcy before God. Any religious system or formula that fails to shift a man's center from self and his own efforts back to Christ and His righteousness is not of God. All such efforts are humanistic and become at last demonic in a final separation from God.

Faith comes to rest on Christ, not on ourselves. Faith involves believing the truth, but it is more than assent to the truth. Faith means that we sense a personal Presence. Two persons are involved with each other, Christ and you. To be truly Christian, faith must bring Christ, His life, and His death, within reach of our own involvement. Unless the living Christ takes over in our life through the power of the Holy Spirit, there is no point of contact between us and God. Christ grips us at the center of our life. We cannot do for ourselves that which only Christ can do.

Abraham and Sarah both realized that they could have no children. Yet God had promised them a son and heir. If they were to have a son, it would have to be by an act of God, by the power of God. Christ alone could do that. They were helpless.

Without faith we have no way of becoming righteous regardless of how hard we try or how well we do. The basic problem of sin is not only the failure to do the best we can. It is a broken fellowship, a ruptured relationship, a separation from God.

Christ is not personally our Saviour and Lord unless we are really dependent upon, and changed by, Him. Faith turns us completely away from ourselves back to trust in, and dependence on, Christ. We are one with Him.