Who is the Object of Your Faith?

 The following is from one of Elisabeth Elliot's letters to her future husband (Jim Elliot) at a time when he was feeling particularly discouraged.  The letter is included in the book Devotedly, lovingly compiled by her daughter, Valerie Shepard:

"When we ask in the most entire honesty of our hearts to be made like Christ, we ask usually with certain more or less vague ideas as to just what that means. But Christ takes us at His word—indeed, why shouldn’t He, for it is He that inspired that very prayer in our hearts—and does exceeding abundantly above all that we asked or thought. He purposes holiness—nothing less—in His child. So He sets about to produce just that in us, by His own methods. . . .

"It is the duty of the Christian to receive. He receives the initial step of salvation, which of course includes the scriptural truth of immediate sanctification, but he also receives just as truly thereafter each new step in his progress of conformity to Christ. It is wonderful to know that it is not only required that we love God with a pure heart, but is also possible. The soul who loves God only for Himself, apart from His gifts, knows indescribable peace.

"The Lord has been so merciful in leading me, in teaching me to trust in a way I never dreamed possible.

". . . Perhaps the Lord does not purpose that you should ever see 'results'—(oh, earthy word! not in Scripture!)—in order that you may the more clearly see Him, who is 'before all things.' So long as the object of your faith does not fail, your  faith need not fail. If that object, however, is the visible gifts of God, it may fail. If the object is God Himself, it will never fail!"