SPIRITUAL GROWTH ENHANCERS
REF NO: 017
2 Corinthians 5:7, CSB: "For we walk by faith, not by sight."
WALKING THROUGH THE LENS OF FAITH
The word "walk" in this text is metaphoric and about the way a person conducts his or her life. In other words, the way we live.
You can know that regardless of what you see, God is good and you’re going to be all right.
This Bible verse will encourage you to keep the faith when life is hard. Paul wrote this epistle to the Church at Corinth so that their faith will remain as fit as fiddle in the Lord. Paul was much more aware of the deep realities and difficulties of life. He and his other apostles had it rough and tough in spreading the gospel of Jesus. Life on earth for them was never rosy all the time because they were men of God and does a lot of great miracles.
Paul wanted them to accept the reality that there may be times of difficulties, distress and frustrations and all their troubles would not be solved by God in a day just because they gave their life to Jesus and are Christians.
When you give your life to Christ and become born again, all your problems will be solved at once and live a rosy rich comfortable life is the beautiful lies often told in Christendom. Some Church Pastors tell this lie to their church members and new converts a lot so when they begin to face the music of some strong challenges, opposition and hardship, they run back to the world and their old ways.
This is because they weren't told the gospel truth from the beginning that it is possible to go through some form of challenges as a child of God but the assuring word is, eventually God will see us through, make an escape route for us and bless us beyond what we can expect or imagine. This is called faith--walk--lens in action. Paul wrote to them so that their faith may be made strong amid their difficult days.
Faith is the pathfinding tool in the hands of the believer to walk through the fiery darts of the enemy and render the activities of demons useless. Faith is the only light through the dark tunnel. In chapter 23 verse 4 the Psalmist wrote: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil..." And why will he fear no evil when his holy pilgrimage is confronted with darkness and threats of death? That's faith in action!
Faith is the only spiritual lens that makes you see through and walk you through the dark tunnel, the deepest valley and myrrh of death without shaking. The spiritual lens of faith will walk you through the potholes, roaring waves, bad weather and Severe turbulence in these dark times and the world of perversity.
Turbulence is something that happens nearly every time you fly, whether you fly commercial or private. And every time it happens, it can be a little scary. Turbulence is one of the reasons travellers are at least a little nervous when it comes to flying.
Turbulence occurs when there is a disturbance in airflow. An aeroplane rides on the wind, and if that flow of wind isn’t perfectly smooth, then the plane will shake or move up and down with the “bumps” in the wind.
While some of us may feel more nervous about turbulence than others, understanding exactly what turbulence is, how pilots are trained to navigate it and how planes are designed to withstand turbulence can help calm your nerves. The pilot is trained to be able to direct or know when turbulence is coming.
Your pilot is an expert in more than how to take off, fly, and land (not that that isn’t impressive enough). Pilots are also trained in safety planning and navigation — including navigating the turbulence.
Before takeoff, the pilot has inspected the route and carefully analyzed the weather forecast and radars.
If they see anything that could cause turbulence, they will attempt to navigate an alternate route to avoid it altogether. In the case of inevitable turbulence, they’ll make sure the “Fasten Seat Belt” light is on, and that passengers are aware in advance of potentially more intense turbulence.
Planes are built to withstand most turbulence. And in the case of more extreme turbulence, which would ideally be navigated around, your pilot can bring down the plane’s speed to a safe velocity, so your plane won’t be damaged when it passes through the disturbances.
In extreme turbulence, the aeroplane is tossed violently about and is impossible to control. Without faith, the extreme turbulence and severe hurricane from this dark world of sin and evil become impossible to control. The Bible is your training manual. It teaches you how to successfully navigate through the fearsome raging of life's turbulence and hurricanes. Life battles are won on grounds of faith. Life's journeys are covered by the lens of faith.
Without you being deeply rooted in faith, your Christian journey will be unsuccessful. The Christian walk is a walk of faith. Christianity without faith is impossible. It is meaningless to be a Christian without faith.
The Apostle Paul wanted the Church at Corinth to know that the struggles facing them are not the most important concern. Not as important as the joy and crown that is set before them. What they "see" in the lens of their physical eyes includes death threats, pain, suffering, opposition and challenge. But the lens of faith sees beyond the human reality to fully trusting and believing in God to turn things around no matter how impossible it may look.
The apostles feel the burden of those things deeply (1 Corinthians 1:8), but they count the unseen things waiting for them with Christ as more real than the suffering of the moment (2 Corinthians 4:18)
Walking by faith in this life, means we are to rely completely on all that God has said in His Word. The life of faith filters our thoughts, actions, attitudes, and words, through the Holy Scriptures, as we listen to the inner promptings of the Holy Spirit, follow His directions, and trust in the Lord with all our hearts.
What Is Faith
One definition of faith from the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “a belief and trust in and loyalty to God.” Additionally, the Oxford English Dictionary defines faith as “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.”
The Merriam-Webster dictionary has another meaning for the word faith. It is a “firm belief in something for which there is no proof” and the Oxford English Dictionary as “strong belief in the doctrine of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof.”
However, do these two secular definitions describe the exact meaning and understanding of biblical faith? We shall look at the meaning of the word faith used in its original Hebrew and Greek.
According to Strong’s concordance, the Hebrew word translated as faith is "emun", which means "faithfulness" and "emunah", which means "firmness, steadfastness, fidelity".
"Emun and emunah" both come from the root word "man", which means "established, confirm, and support". So, we can conclude by saying that faith means "being steady and firm in what you believe, and it‘s long-lasting".
From Strong’s Concordance, the Greek word used in that verse (2 Corinthians 5:7) for faith is "pistis", which means "belief, trust, confidence, and fidelity". Pistis appears over 200 times in the New Testament.
When the Greek New Testament was translated into Latin, fides was the natural choice as a translation of Pistis, because fides means “trust, confidence, reliance, belief.”
Pistis comes from the root word Peitho, which means to persuade, have confidence, come to trust. So, we can conclude that faith is an absolute and confident belief. It is being persuaded and assured that He is who He is.
The Apostle Paul simplified the definition of biblical faith walking lens in the simplest sentence, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" Hebrews 11: 1
The amplified version says, “Now faith is the assurance (title, deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen (the conviction of their reality- faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses).”
From both the Hebrew and Greek words of faith and the verse above, the right definition of faith is a complete belief, trust, and confidence in something. It is steady, unwavering, and lasts forever.
Martin Luther King Jr. framed it this way, “faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
FAITH means- belief, firm persuasion, assurance, firm conviction, faithfulness. Faith is confidence in what we hope for and the assurance that the lord is working, even though we cannot see it. Faith knows that no matter what the situation, in our lives or someone else's that the lord is working in it.
It is the act whereby a person lays hold of God's resources, becomes obedient to what He has prescribed and puts aside all self-interest and self-reliance, trusts Him completely.
It is an unqualified surrender of the whole of one's being in total dependence upon Him. It is wholly trusting and relying upon Him for all things. It is not just mental assent to the facts and realities of truth, it must come from a deep inner conviction.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your understanding" Proverbs 3:5
"He that trusts in his own heart are a fool" but whose walketh wisely, he shall be delivered. Proverbs 28:26
According to Wikibooks, Faith is the connecting power into the spiritual realm, which links us with God and makes Him become a tangible reality to the sense perceptions of a person. Faith is the basic ingredient to begin a relationship with God.
Faith is the assurance that the things revealed and promised in the Word are true, even though unseen, and gives the believer a conviction that what he expects in faith, will come to pass. Faith is the tangible essence of what is hoped for - so tangible that the faith itself, is the evidence/reality of those things that are not yet visible. In other words, it becomes so tangible that you now possess it. It becomes a reality in the spiritual realm.
For Christians, to have faith in God means to confidently believe in Him, to be assured and convinced that He exists even though we can’t see Him. And to steadily trust Him no matter what goes on in our life. Faith means to trust God.
My dear, keep the faith of fire burning in your soul. It is all you need to be victorious in life and make heaven. May the good Lord continue to increase your faith and make this year and beyond a year of greater expectations of great and mighty blessings to come your way. Shalom Aleichem!
