What is Faith?
We could study what faith means for the rest of our lives and never stop learning about it. Faith is a central concept in the Bible, and so much is said about this important subject. In our Faith Series, we will only try to offer a simple definition of faith, and hopefully this will spur you on in your own study of what the Bible says about faith. According to Quora* the word “faith” is mentioned 254 times in the New International Version Bible. Obviously, faith is something God wants us to know a lot about! With such a big concept, we might feel intimidated to even study faith at all, but we are compelled to study faith, because of the importance God places on this concept in the Bible.
Let’s start with a verse that is the closest the Bible comes to a definition of faith, Hebrews 11:1. In our Hope Series, we looked at this verse in the New American Standard Bible version as it related to hope, but I also like how the New International Version Bible is phrased:
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
If you’ve been reading this blog for long, you know where we will go from here. Faith in the Greek G4102 means “persuasion, moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation, assurance, belief, faith, fidelity.” And faith comes from a root word G3982 that means “to convince, to assent, to rely, agree, assure, believe, have confidence, make friend, obey, persuade, trust, yield.” There is a lot to faith! In the root word G3982, we can see that faith is related to trust.
So, let’s say you have a trustworthy friend. You know this person’s character, that they are truthful, that they are trustworthy, that they love you, that they are for you. Then circumstances arise which make it appear that this person has stolen something from you. Will your trust in that person override the incriminating evidence you see before you? If you really trust this person, you will be convinced that the evidence may be wrong, that there must be some explanation for your friend’s behavior, since you know your friend is trustworthy. FAITH would believe the friend, not the circumstances. It’s the same with God. FAITH believes that God is truthful, that He is trustworthy, that He loves us, that He is for us, despite our circumstances, difficulties and trials.
If we know God’s character, if we trust God, if our hope is in Him, despite what we may see around us, we can have FAITH in God. We will believe in God no matter what we see. We know God and His character, so even though it may look to us like He has abandoned us, we choose to trust Him anyway and have FAITH in Him. Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 4:16,18 New American Standard Bible for more insight: .
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day…. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Many of us lose heart so easily when we encounter difficulties in our lives (you can see that I have included myself here!). But God tells us in this verse how we can avoid losing heart, and it is by fixing our eyes on what is unseen not on what is seen. What is seen are the circumstances that surround us-the amount of money in our bank account (yikes! there have been times with five children that we have lived pay-check to pay-check!), sickness, job loss, appliances breaking down, misbehaving kids (We’ve been through every one of these!). What is unseen, is what God is doing for us behind the scenes, the plan God has for us in these circumstances, how He will either rescue us out of them or help us endure as we go through them. FAITH focuses not on the temporary, ie our earthly troubles, but on the eternal, God’s eternal plan for us. FAITH focuses not on the seen but on the unseen. We stand firm in FAITH, if we keep our focus on God.
So moms, don’t lose heart, instead
KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE UNSEEN AND YOUR HOPE IN GOD, SO YOU CAN STAND IN FAITH.
In His Love,
Suzanne
Mom Morsels 