Real Faith

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.