THE DEFINITION OF FAITH

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.

In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.

Hebrews 11:1-2 GNT

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

None of us have seen God or Jesus. Not one of us.

That time, the time when any person will be able to meet God and Jesus, and then abide with them forever is still yet to come. All they need to have done before then is believe in Jesus as Savior. That’s it.

The Bible promises this salvation and associated everlasting life. It’s a promise from God Himself and in His perfect righteousness, He possesses no ability to lie. And so whatever He says will happen, will happen. He will do whatever He said He would do.

That’s all one needs to hold onto in life. If God said it would take place, then it will take place. If He said He would do something then He will do it. There’s no reason to entertain any thoughts of doubt. Any Christian only needs to show an uncompromising trust and faith in the Lord through which all things are possible.

This is the foundation for today’s first two opening verses of Hebrews, chapter 11, and this lead in message to what will be a lengthy examination of what faith brings to the believer.

Note in our passage that the writer of Hebrews provides a concise definition of faith to his audience, the Hebrew Christians. I’m using the Good News Translation but the essence of these verses is the same no matter what Bible you use. Here’s what he writes on this matter:

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.

The first thing the scriptures tell us here is that faith equals confidence.

...faith is confidence in what we hope for...

Confidence means we believe with surety and certainty. It’s an unmovable feeling that God will bring what you place your hope in and what we put our hope in should always be in accordance with His will for our lives. This is affirmed in these words from John’s first letter:

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of Him. 1 John 5:14-15

This passage is important because we have hopes that may not be covered by an absolute statement in the scriptures. For example, we all get sick and although we know God is the Great Physician and able to heal anyone, we also know that there will be a day when our bodies will fail us and cease to function anymore. This certain death is totally at God’s bidding and so while our hope may be to recover and be totally healed from our affliction, God’s will may be for us to die.

And so as Christians, we may pray with confidence in what we hope for, which is to get well but if that doesn’t happen and the Lord deems that life here on earth is over, then we as believers get to shift our confidence to the hope that has been guaranteed through our Savior Jesus Christ, the hope of salvation and eternal life.

In this scenario, we can see a win-win scenario, each grounded in a confident faith in the Lord. That’s how we exercise trust in the midst of challenge while being sure that our Lord, who we cannot see, is indeed working all things out for our good, the ones who love Him and have been called according to His purposes (Romans 8:28).

This is the same faith that has been practiced since the earliest days of the Bible and for at least the next two weeks, we are going to look at examples of what faith brought to those who placed their fullest trust in God, those ancient God believers who were commended for their faithfulness.

As we do, let’s remember the core definition of faith as presented to us by God’s word. For it’s:

The confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.