What Is Faith

What is faith? The word "faith" is found in the New Testament 253 times. It must be very important.

Faith is believing that our Bible is the true inspired word of God, without error or contradiction. For me this is easy, for there has been no other book that has change my life like the Bible. It is an instruction book that has all the answers for whatever problems may arise. You can’t pick and choose what you want to believe from the Bible. If there is only one thing in the Bible that you don’t want to believe, then the entire Bible becomes suspect as to its validity for you. This is a case of all or nothing. I know the Bible to be the true Word of God. There are no doubts in my mind or heart.

Let’s read:

Eph 2:8-9

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--

9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

(NIV)

Faith is a personal surrender to God. When we accept Christ as our Savior, we are putting faith that Christ died on the cross for our sins and that God raised Him from the dead. It is through faith that we know that we now have the promise of eternal life in Heaven with God. Faith believes without any doubts.

Let’s read:

Gal 2:20

20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

(NIV)

Faith is a conduct inspired by such surrender to God. When we accept Jesus as the Lord of our lives, then we take on a new way of life. We are no longer our old selves, but we are born again. Our old life of sin has died and we live a new life in Christ. This means that people should be able to see Christ in us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

We are to live by faith in Jesus. This means that we let Him lead us. We trust Him to provide our every need. We are not to worry about tomorrow. Christ will take care of us, if we don’t interfere. I learned the hard way that I can’t solve my own problems, but Christ can, if I let Him do it His way.

So for us to have faith, we must believe in the Word, we must surrender our lives to Christ and we must conduct our lives, so that others can see Christ in us. It is sometimes easy to distinguish a Christian with little faith. They are the ones that seem to worry about anything and everything. As Christians we are to put our trust in God and His promises. God is a holy and righteous God. He cannot and will not break His promises to us. When it seems that our lives are a mess and everything is going wrong, God hasn’t deserted us, we have deserted Him. We have stopped putting our faith in His promises. If you want to live a worry free life, learn to trust God and His Word. Have Faith that God is still in control of everything. What kind of faith must we have? We must have a faith of innocence.

Let’s read:

Matt 18:2-4

2 He called a little child and had him stand among them.

3 And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

4 Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

(NIV)

I always wondered what it meant to become like little children. One day my granddaughter, Bethany, did something that made me realize what this verse means.

Bethany has such faith in me that it scares me sometimes. She will climb up on the coffee table, stand up, and turn to face me and jump. She doesn’t ask if I am ready to catch her. She doesn’t even check to see if I am watching her. She has the faith that her Grandpa will catch her in his out stretched arms. Bethany demonstrated a faith that all children have in their parents and grandparents. Bethany knows that we will always be there for her, even when she painted our brand new carpet.

Do we trust our Heavenly Father that much? We should! There are times that I may not be around to catch Bethany when she falls, but God is always there to catch us when we fall. Jesus is always there with out stretched arms; ready to lift us up when we are down. When Bethany skins her knee, her mom is there to make it better. When we are hurting because of life’s disappointments, Jesus is standing next to us with out stretched arms, waiting for us to reach out to Him. Do we have the faith of a child knowing that her parents are there for her? We should. God said that He would never leave us nor forsake us. Let’s put our faith back in God and not in ourselves.