FAITH
What is “faith”? Well, it’s one of those concepts so obscured and disfigured by contemporary culture (like “Love”) that an accurate definition is often substituted for something more concrete yet less true.
Ok...let’s start by doing what our teachers told us NOT to do—defining something by what it isn’t:
Faith is not a particular religion. Yet when you hear the word used in a modern context, that’s the definition that most readily pops up. But “religion” is not what GOD was building in Abraham; “religion” is not what Jesus challenged His listeners to demonstrate in their prayers, and religion is not what we must possess in order to please GOD (Hebrews 11:6). Faith has always been, in its pure and original form, deeper than a system of belief.
The Bible defines FAITH as confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11:1a NIV) or the reality of what is hoped for (Hebrews 11:1a CSB); and assurance about what we do not see (Hebrews 11:1b NIV). The Amplified Version expands the definition like this: Faith comprehends as fact that which cannot be experienced by the physical senses (Hebrews 11:1b AMP). Therefore, the saying “seeing is believing” is a direct contradiction to what the Bible declares as faith. Faith flies a defiant flag in the face of a culture that demands proof for everything while dismissing the proof in the testimonies of millions of believers who through the ages have declared that GOD is real.
So, faith demands that I believe what my senses cannot verify? Sounds risky, but that’s exactly what faith demands. Yet, faith with all its inherent “risk”, has changed lives over and over again! Atheists have been turned around; agnostics have gotten off the fence; and the confused have gotten clarity not because they found “religion” but because they have found a new life in believing that “GOD is”! And it is this reality—the truth that GOD is—that scoffers can never defeat and science can never dismiss. As a matter of fact, the more people try to use science to prove there is no GOD, the more they reveal His power and majesty.
So...how do you “get faith”? You believe. More precisely, you believe what GOD has said. A mentor of mine taught it to me this way: “Faith is an affirmative response to what GOD has said.” Now, you believe in Mars but you’ve never seen it in person. You believe in Oxygen but you can’t detect it with your senses. Believe that GOD is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). You may not have seen GOD in person, but faith reveals Him to you in the things of life—seen and unseen!
That’s where faith starts—not with a religion, but with a reality. And the moment you dare to embrace that reality is the moment you will experience true FAITH!