here’s an excerpt from a book i’m writing about peace (following the themes of peace and unity through paul’s epistle to the romans). this part comes from…… romans 4.
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Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. What a simple blessed testimony. God spoke, Abraham knew the voice of God; and that was enough for him. Abraham moved out in childlike faith, trusting that God who had promised him these things was capable of following through on them.

He moved from a place of being capable to produce what he needed, to a place where he was utterly dependent on Father to provide for him. He moved from a realm of the possible into the realm of the unknown and the impossible, all because Father called him. He moved out of the realm of what he could earn into the realm of what he could receive.

This is the same place Peter stepped out into when he left the boat to walk on the water to Jesus. There is nothing to earn in this place. This is the place of risking all that the Son of Man completely identifies with. Here success is supernaturally continuing in the faith that allowed the first step; failure is just a matter of “why did you doubt?”

All that is needed is to hear the master’s voice and mix faith with it. The awed crowd that Jesus had fed ran around the lake to find him, and asked what they could do to work the works of God. Jesus’ response defines what it means that we labor to enter into the rest Father has established: the only work needed to please Father is to believe the one he sent.

The word (the proclamation) goes forth – and it contains the very faith required to lay hold of it. Faith comes by hearing. Not straining, not striving; simply hearing and receiving.

The Holy Spirit knows the place of the glorious liberty, and it lies in this realm where everything truly valuable and desirable is freely given. No one is grasping or clamoring, no one is arguing or fighting over receiving credit; everyone is basking in the brilliance of the height, length, width and breadth of the inheritance of Father’s everlasting love in Christ.

There is something so beautifully pure about a statement like “All I know is I was blind, but now I see.” This is the simplicity of righteousness being imputed, credited. There’s absolutely no sense of any entitlement! Unspeakable joy comes out of being completely overwhelmed with the unexpected.