Silas
Beloved of All
Your honest question goes to the very foundation of faith, and it is good to ask it. If every other person and their influence were taken away, would you still believe in God. True faith must be able to answer yes, because it does not rest finally on people, memories, or experiences with others. It rests on God himself.
Scripture describes faith as the confidence in what we hope for and the evidence of what we do not see. We have not seen God with our eyes, yet the evidence of his existence is all around us, and that evidence creates faith in the heart. There are many real things we believe in without having seen them. By that kind of faith those who went before us pleased God. Without faith it is impossible to please him, because anyone who comes to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who diligently seek him. That belief comes first, and then it moves us to live for him. Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Abel and others were honored not because their works were perfect, but because they believed the promise and word of God, and God counted that faith as righteousness.
You also describe a cry for help and a desire to call upon God for aid, and to serve your mother in her need. God invites you to call upon him directly. When you have turned your problem over to him and asked for his help, you are in a good place. You can have quiet assurance because your confidence is in him. Learn to cast your burden upon him, for he will sustain you. He is for you, and if God is for you, who can be against you. When you see your need from his perspective, from his power as the Creator in whom we live and move and have our being, you can rest.
In that cry for help, come through Jesus Christ alone. Scripture teaches that there is one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ, and that we are made righteous before God only through faith in him. Abraham believed God and God counted it to him for righteousness, and that was before any religious rite, as Genesis 15 shows. That same principle is given to all who believe, Jew and Gentile alike. You are a child of God by faith in Christ Jesus, and your righteousness before God is not based on your works or on keeping rules, but on what Jesus did on the cross where he bore our sins and judgment. Because of that, you can have assurance and peace. Understanding his grace is essential to knowing his peace. Apart from grace we relate to God in a legal way and never know if we are secure from one week to the next, but when the gospel comes not in word only but in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much assurance, we know we are accepted.
It is right and good to serve your mother in her need. To honor your mother and to help her as a servant is pleasing to God. Keep that service as an offering to the Lord himself. At the same time, keep your prayer and trust directed to God the Father through Jesus Christ his Son by the Holy Spirit. We are not taught to pray to a mother figure or to angels for spiritual help. Those are created beings. Prayer is to the living God who alone can save and help, and help from any other arm of flesh will be in vain. The strength of his people is to sit still and trust in him, to wait upon him with quiet confidence rather than running to other sources.
Your faith will be tested and proved, and that proving develops patience. Like Abraham, we often fail when we do not wait upon God, but God uses the testing to make our faith firm. The just shall live by faith. That faith will at times bring victory and at times call you to endure, but God honors the faith that looks to him.
May the Lord give you a deeper confidence in his existence, his goodness, and his nearness, and may he give you much assurance of his grace in Christ. May he hear your cry as you call upon him through Jesus, sustain you as you cast your burden on him, and strengthen you to continue to love and serve your mother faithfully for his sake.
Scripture describes faith as the confidence in what we hope for and the evidence of what we do not see. We have not seen God with our eyes, yet the evidence of his existence is all around us, and that evidence creates faith in the heart. There are many real things we believe in without having seen them. By that kind of faith those who went before us pleased God. Without faith it is impossible to please him, because anyone who comes to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who diligently seek him. That belief comes first, and then it moves us to live for him. Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Abel and others were honored not because their works were perfect, but because they believed the promise and word of God, and God counted that faith as righteousness.
You also describe a cry for help and a desire to call upon God for aid, and to serve your mother in her need. God invites you to call upon him directly. When you have turned your problem over to him and asked for his help, you are in a good place. You can have quiet assurance because your confidence is in him. Learn to cast your burden upon him, for he will sustain you. He is for you, and if God is for you, who can be against you. When you see your need from his perspective, from his power as the Creator in whom we live and move and have our being, you can rest.
In that cry for help, come through Jesus Christ alone. Scripture teaches that there is one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ, and that we are made righteous before God only through faith in him. Abraham believed God and God counted it to him for righteousness, and that was before any religious rite, as Genesis 15 shows. That same principle is given to all who believe, Jew and Gentile alike. You are a child of God by faith in Christ Jesus, and your righteousness before God is not based on your works or on keeping rules, but on what Jesus did on the cross where he bore our sins and judgment. Because of that, you can have assurance and peace. Understanding his grace is essential to knowing his peace. Apart from grace we relate to God in a legal way and never know if we are secure from one week to the next, but when the gospel comes not in word only but in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much assurance, we know we are accepted.
It is right and good to serve your mother in her need. To honor your mother and to help her as a servant is pleasing to God. Keep that service as an offering to the Lord himself. At the same time, keep your prayer and trust directed to God the Father through Jesus Christ his Son by the Holy Spirit. We are not taught to pray to a mother figure or to angels for spiritual help. Those are created beings. Prayer is to the living God who alone can save and help, and help from any other arm of flesh will be in vain. The strength of his people is to sit still and trust in him, to wait upon him with quiet confidence rather than running to other sources.
Your faith will be tested and proved, and that proving develops patience. Like Abraham, we often fail when we do not wait upon God, but God uses the testing to make our faith firm. The just shall live by faith. That faith will at times bring victory and at times call you to endure, but God honors the faith that looks to him.
May the Lord give you a deeper confidence in his existence, his goodness, and his nearness, and may he give you much assurance of his grace in Christ. May he hear your cry as you call upon him through Jesus, sustain you as you cast your burden on him, and strengthen you to continue to love and serve your mother faithfully for his sake.
