When we believe God's Word about our lost condition, and realize that the Lord Jesus Christ took our place on the cross and accomplished all that was needed to save us, and by faith accept His perfect righteousness and eternal life, we are born again.

Knowing the truth on any subject is very important, but concerning spiritual things, none of us can afford to be careless about what is the real truth. We are told in God's Word, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts; neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9) It is only through knowledge of Bible doctrine that His thoughts and ways become ours.

We cannot trust man, no matter who he or she is, to be accurate about how to be saved, or how to live the Christian life. If we were to ask the next 100 people we met what we needed to do to get to Heaven, we would probably discover that 99% of them would have the wrong answer. Most, if not all, think it is by doing. They believe that if you are sincere and do your best, a loving God could not refuse to allow you to live with Him in Heaven. But what we need to remember is that God would not have allowed His Son to die on the cross for our sins if there had been any other way to save us.

The most important habit we need to implement as soon as possible is that of looking for our answers in the Word of God. Most believers, after they have trusted Christ, have a sincere desire to please Him. The mistake almost all of us make is going to others for our direction. We are told in 2 Peter 3:18, "But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." What we need most of all is to study the Bible and learn about our Savior and the perfect provision that He has made for us.

We find in this verse that we are considering, that God is pleased when we believe, or trust, in what He has revealed to us. What has impressed me about all the people mentioned in this chapter is their faith in the message that God gave to each one of them. When God told Abraham to leave his people and country and go to a place he knew nothing about, he immediately obeyed. When he was told to sacrifice his son on the altar, he rose up early in the morning and set out to obey God, (of course, God prevented him from actually sacrificing Isaac). What pleased God about each one of them was not what they did, but their faith in what God had said.

We, as church age believers, are given a perfect provision no other people of God have experienced. We have the completed Word of God, the new nature, and the indwelling Holy Spirit. But unless we have Bible Doctrine, we will not be effective witnesses nor know how to live the Christian life. God saved us from Hell, but He wants each of us to be more than conquerors through Him that loved us. The more that we learn about our Savior, the more precious He becomes to us. We will never live a sinless life until we get to Heaven and are rid of the old sin nature, but we can, day by day, trust what God has revealed to us and experience His joy and peace because we believe Him.