Faith

FAITH

A small boy riding a bus home from Sunday school was very proud of the card he had

received, which had a picture and a caption that read: “Have Faith in God.” Then to his

dismay the card slipped from his hand and fluttered out the window. “Stop the bus!” he

cried. “I’ve lost my ‘faith in God!’”

The driver pulled the bus to a stop, and as the lad climbed out and went to retrieve his

card, one of the adult riders smiled and made a comment about the innocence of youth. A

more perceptive adult observed, “All of us would be better off if we were that concerned

about our faith.

We’d better stop here and examine the word and the concept of faith. In Hebrew, faith means to

question or hesitate. Certainly this is not the faith of Abraham. While he did have questions and at

times wondered when the God’s promise would happen, I don’t think he hesitated in his faith in

God. Certainly he didn’t hesitate when God called him out of Ur, the land of his father, to found a

new nation. Scripture records that Abram, as he was known then, picked up everything he had,

sheep, cattle, tents, a nephew, and his wife Sari, and began a trek to a land unknown to him. What

a great act of the word we are defining -- faith -- this was.

Let’s look at “faith” as Paul uses it in the Greek language. In Greek, faith means a conviction in

the truthfulness of God. This is the kind of faith Paul’s Abraham had. A conviction in the

truthfulness of God. This faith - this conviction - is what God recognized when he, “credited his

faith to him as righteousness.”

Everyone has faith in something. Even a lack of faith is a kind of faith. Some people have “little

faith,” and we feel sorry for them. Some folks have “a desperate faith,” and we pray for them.

Some people have a “different faith,” and we fear them. Some people have “strong faith,” and we

admire them. Perhaps one of the best attempts to define faith, what it is and who has it, comes

from The Communicator’s Commentary, written by Dr. Stuart Briscoe. He writes, “The object of

faith is what really matters, more than anything else. Some people who had strong faith in thin ice

never lived to tell the tale but died by faith. Others who had weak faith in thick ice were as safe as

if they stood on concrete. The object of faith is what really matters, more than anything else.”

Who is the object of our faith? It is God. The God who created the heavens and the earth.

You see, it is important that we understand in whom we believe, in whom we place our trust.

Blind faith can get us killed. Thin ice is thin ice. Trusting in thin ice is never a good idea. Trusting

in God is always a good idea.

If you take the time to study what the Bible says about faith, you will come to the undeniable

conclusion that faith must have a solid foundation. It must be built upon that foundation. Faith

must have a cornerstone upon which to build. We are not called to have faith in faith itself. Faith

in faith is not faith . The only true foundation for faith is God.

Then we might ask, “Why have faith?” Why did Abraham have faith - faith in God? Maybe it was

because of God’s promise in Gen. 12:2-3. (read)

Faith isn’t something we turn on and off, like a switch. Faith is a lifestyle. Faith is something we

live each day. We live in a society of skeptics and cynics. Often people will respond to a promised

possibility by saying, "I don’t believe it!" They call that reality, but it is really a form of skepticism

learned by negative experiences.

Unfortunately we’ve all had negative experiences and these negative experiences have conditioned

us to look at things as skeptics. Because we have been disappointed so many times, we are

tempted to believe in nothing or no one. When promised something we often respond by saying,

"I’ll believe it when I see it!" The problem is, even when we do see it we often don’t believe it.

Even knowing that God is the only sure foundation for our faith does not automatically mean that

we will have faith. There are always barriers to faith. Abraham faced these barriers to faith. One

barrier we all face is circumstances. We look at our lives and wonder how anything can be done in

our situation. That’s exactly what Abraham did.

God had made a promise to Abraham that he would become the father of many nations. But