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Wednesday May 13, 2026
The capacity to receive
“Faith, in itself, which is the capacity to receive, to use, to apply, is utterly useless unless the material is first provided upon which it can be exercised. What use are mouth and stomach, unless there be food? What use lungs, unless there be air? God’s wondrous order in nature and spirit is very simple. He, the Giver, has provided all. In one ceaseless river He pours His gifts upon us, all things natural and supernatural, whether it be sun and rain, food and the riches of the earth, or the grace in Christ Jesus. All in unending abundance for body and soul is ours. All things but one. He does not force appeptance on us. He does not compel us to love, whether in body or Spirit. Love seeks for love, free, unconditioned, love for love’s sake. Therefore God made man in His image, free in will and choice, able to accept, able to reject; for God seeks the worship, love and service of willing hearts. He gives, He presses all upon us, His gifts, His Son, Himself. But we must take. Food He provides, but we must take and eat. Air, but we must breathe. Ninety-nine per cent of life consists of God’s endless giving. One per cent consists of taking. Both are essential, but in that proportion. We are here stressing faith, for our object is to analyse and examine the way man receives and uses what he is given. That is not meant to give glory to faith or credit to faith, as if faith produced anything. Faith supplies the one per cent. That is all. God supplies the 99 per cent–to Him is the glory, in Him is the grace, for Him is our love. (Indeed, properly speaking, the 100 per cent is His, for faith itself is a God-given, natural faculty.) Our consideration is only centered round the one per cent, yet that must be considered just because experience shows that so many Christians flounder about, not because they do not know the grace of God revealed in Christ, but because they do not know how, steadily, consistently, to appropriate, use, and apply what they are given, according to the set laws of appropriation–of faith.”
Taken from: The Law of Faith
By Norman Grubb
Pages 27-28
