“It is impossible to fully believe in God and at the same time expect to understand everything He does in our lives. We preach the way of faith!” This is what Kåre J. Smith said in a message at the 2025 Easter Conference. Based on this statement, we understand that it is vitally important to come to a living faith in God’s election and plans specifically for me, and to be preserved in faith through all of life’s various phases and trials. Without this faith, life can become dark and heavy, precisely because we, with our human minds, are unable to understand His ways with us. However, through faith we can repent and lay hold of a different mind and be converted from our human understanding, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. “For ‘who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.” 1 Cor. 2:16. We are very familiar with this mind from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, “. . . He humbled Himself.” So what does this mean for me in my daily life, where my understanding resists and everything at times can seem dark? What should I do now? Yes, I need to humble myself by having the same mind that my forerunner had, because in this humiliation, the judgment against Him was taken away! I am to humble myself under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt me in due time, casting all my cares upon Him, for He cares for me! 1 Pet. 5:6-7. This is the way of faith. Here I melt together with the word and I gain more insight into God’s unsearchable ways, and I partake of God’s wisdom and knowledge. “So few choose the glorious way of the cross, for all that was gain you must reckon as loss. Your all you must give, letting nothing remain. ‘Tis only through death godly life you attain.” WotL 92. May we always be found walking on this glorious way by faith, because here we have fellowship with all those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. “By faith” is how as many as 16 verses in chapter 11 of the letter to the Hebrews begin, and the same must also be able to be said about us! “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Heb. 11:6. The reward God gives to those who walk by faith, and the exaltation Peter refers to in his letter, is that He wants to share His own nature with us. That is truly an exaltation! In light of this, the effort seems insignificant; however, I must humble myself under God’s mighty hand and continue to do this, day after day, week after week, and year after year, in all the circumstances that life brings. When He determines the right time, that same mighty hand will also exalt me. This takes time; therefore, I need to continue on this way in faith and patience, so that I can be a joint heir to the greatest and most precious promises that He could give to mankind—divine nature! The declaration made by Elias Aslaksen: “Faith in the word of life is the greatest power that exists in the universe” proves to have a revolutionary impact on my entire life, because by faith “Lives are transformed in a marvelous way!” [From WotL 274. “Faith turns our lives upside down in an instant!” Norw.] Someone who was previously discouraged and timid becomes empowered by faith to live an exalted and victorious life, regardless of circumstances, because the author and finisher of our faith, our precious Savior and forerunner, Jesus Christ, was Himself tempted in all points as we are, “YET WITHOUT SIN!” What a liberating gospel to have a living faith in!Rolf Ekholt

What was Samuel referring to when he said these words to Saul? Was it not Saul’s hidden attitude of mind which was spontaneously manifested when Samuel came to anoint him as king over Israel? 1 Sam. 9:21. “And Saul answered and said, ‘Am I not a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel, and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? Why then do you speak like this to me?’” He was very consciously aware of his incompetence. That attitude represents a painful death to our enemy—the human ego. It is a great grace that we can watch and pray that we never come away from this awareness! Saul’s response when Samuel anointed him to be king was a simple, honest acknowledgment of the truth. From that point, God could teach and anoint Saul for the task he was to carry out. To be little in our own eyes involves having a deep longing to learn from Jesus to be “meek and humble of heart,” and we receive power to do precisely what we read about Jesus in 1 Pet. 2:23-24: “. . . but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.” By the Spirit of truth, we understand that we are by no means qualified to allow our thoughts to analyze or criticize what others think and believe. Matt. 11:29. To be able to “learn” requires an inner attitude and disposition in which we acknowledge that we don’t know as we should. 1 Cor. 8:2. Then the way is open for us to receive God’s thoughts, which are true and righteous. Then we can learn to think soberly, as it is written in Rom. 12:3: “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.” We rejoice that through the cross we can partake in Christ’s sufferings and bring our own thoughts into captivity to the obedience of Christ. We get to know Him in fellowship with Him in His sufferings—this is our calling. Those who are little in their own eyes see the glory in receiving God’s thoughts as good and perfect gifts from above, which are so much higher than their own thoughts. Having faith in those thoughts, they are equipped to carry out the works that God has prepared for them: serving others.Sam Petkau

In Gal. 5:26, Paul gives a clear and much-needed exhortation: “Let us not desire empty honor, provoking one another, envying one another.” [Norw.] Jesus says about Himself in John 5:41, “I do not receive honor from men.” This desire for empty honor—honor from people—is probably one of the most common sins from which people suffer from a very young age. The fact that it is common does not make it any less serious! In the same chapter, Jesus says in verse 44, “How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?” Here, the seriousness really becomes apparent. If we live off honor from people and seek a good testimony from them, then according to Jesus’ words it is impossible to believe and thereby also impossible to make progress on the way of salvation! It is perhaps easy to think that we are done with this sin, and it may also be that we are sufficiently “wise” that we manage to behave in such a way as to avoid the most gross or most “ridiculous” forms of this sin— doing such things where everyone can see and understand that now we are seeking honor. We can, for example, choose our words so that it sounds so “humble and pious.” But if we let the light of truth illuminate our thoughts, words, and deeds, we will quickly discover that unfortunately not everything is as pure and free from seeking honor as we would like to believe. The truth is that seeking honor is deeply ingrained in our nature and it manifests itself in many different “refined” forms: we enjoy thoughts of grandeur now and then, we are pleased when we are praised for something, we like to talk about things we have achieved, we wait to be mentioned publicly in an especially positive light, etc. etc. In fact, our way of thinking and behavior testify to a great extent that we are actually seeking honor of people. Only the cross can completely free us from all this. This requires a zealous and wholehearted fight of faith, where we repeatedly say “NO!” when the temptation to receive honor arises. The glorious thing is that through faith we can also be completely freed from this sin, and instead God can begin to write more and more of His laws and commandments in our hearts and minds. Just consider, for example, the exhortation in Rom. 12:10: “In honor giving preference to one another.” What a contrast to having this desire for empty honor. God can perform such a miracle in a wretched human being. We can be transformed from being bound and permeated by the desire for empty honor, so that we instead get a desire to honor one another. Praise God for such a work of faith! John 12:24-26: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.” This is completely hidden from someone who has not become a disciple. Let us pray for enlightened eyes so that we who have become disciples can see to a much greater extent the glory of following Jesus in hating ourselves according to the flesh and becoming a grain of wheat! For the natural man, such a life is “madness.” A grain of wheat lies in the ground and dies. There is not much to see and boast about in a rotting grain of wheat. . . Down there under the ground there is not much empty honor to be had from people. But it is precisely such a grain of wheat that the Father will honor, and that must be enough for us for eternity!Johannes Nevanlinna