Real Faith
Hebrews 11:1
What is faith? It’s a
good question in the face of all the tragedy that we see around us. Many find
events like the Moore tornado hard to rationalize with their understanding of a
loving God. Others see the stories of
miraculous deliverance as sure evidence of His existence. So how do we discern what is real faith from
pie-in-the-sky, Pollyanna optimism with no real basis in fact?
One of our basic problems when looking at the big issues of
life like this is the tendency to define
words in a way that suits us best. We
can define faith in any number of ways that might support one argument or
another, but as with all things really important, if we want a reliable
definition, we need to go to the Scriptures.
Mark Twain said, “Faith is believing in something you really
know isn’t true.” Wow! What a fatalistic
and cynical outlook. Sadly, many people
look at faith as simply avoiding the real life issues that they face. But Scripture has another perspective.
We all know Hebrews 11 as the Faith Chapter. In its verses we see example after example of
people who allowed their faith to determine their actions and attitude, and as
a result, they experienced the unusual blessing of God on their lives. Over the next several weeks, we will look at
this chapter and try to identify the characteristics displayed in the lives of
these ‘heroes of faith’ that can be applied to make a difference in our lives
today.
In verse one, the writer of Hebrews gives us that simple
definition of faith that we need in order to put things in perspective. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped
for…” In order to understand this part
of the definition, we really need to understand the meaning of the word ‘hope’. In modern times, we have diminished this word
to mean ‘an uncertain, anxious wishfulness for a desirable outcome.’ But in the Scriptures it has a very different
meaning. Hope as used here and at 60 other
places in the New Testament means ‘a confident expectation of a promised end, a
peaceful assurance of the reality of things not yet visible.’
Our human nature demands to experience things with our five
senses in order to confirm their truth, to handle, to sniff, to examine
something in order to confirm that it is what it claims to be. Faith on the other hand acknowledges that
there is another realm, outside of the physical, material world, that is just
as real, but separate from our five senses.
That other realm is the spiritual side of reality that is spoken of and
clearly described in Scripture. We are
told that “God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit
and in truth.” Faith gives equal
standing to that which God has promised in His Word to that which our five senses
can experience. It accepts the evidence
presented in the Scriptures and in our hearts by the Holy Spirit as a legitimate
reason for confident assurance.
And when we then choose to act, as those heroes listed in
Hebrews 11 did, not based on the
circumstances that our senses observe, but upon the confident assurance that
God’s Word and His Spirit grants to us, we open the door for God’s power to
work in miraculous ways.
Let’s covenant together that we are going to begin to allow
our faith to determine our actions, so that we can see God change our world.
