https://my.bible.com/verse-of-the-day/HEB.11.1/46037?version=100
What is faith? This verse is often quoted as the answer to that question. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Well, as a definition, it often strikes me as ”faith is being faithful.” it doesn’t really answer the question of what faith is. What I hope for doesn’t have a ”substance” and what I can’t see doesn’t really count as “evidence”, does it?
Here’s where you a probably thinking I am going to come back with an amazing answer to this question. But I don’t have one. Faith is taken by itself as evidence of things I don’t have. Confidence is sometimes placed in this verse as an answer, that faith is confidence that what we hope for will in fact happen. If I pray for healing, then faith is the confidence that I will be healed. If I pray for the Lord’s will to be revealed in my life, then faith is knowing that God will reveal that will to me. Faith is grasping what I can’t grasp with my hands. Only by faith can we comprehend things we cannot see with our eyes.
It is by faith that I believe my wife loves me. Either that or it’s an elaborate ruse to gain my confidence so that she can someday do something nefarious. So far, 24+ years on, she has expertly carried on as if she loves me. I can’t see love. But I can see meals prepared, hugs given and received, kisses, even four children brought into the world. If she doesn’t love me, then she has gone through an awful lot of trouble. I believe that love exists, because I can see what it does.
Faith must then be my active portion of that. Faith is what I do based upon what I can’t see, but know is there. Faith is active beyond my senses to my deductions based on what I can see. I believe in God because I see the effects of His creation around me. I believe in Jesus because of the evidence of His life and his work in me. I am not the same man I was when I was saved.
That may not be a great definition, but it is mine. Maybe it will be a help to you today. God bless.
Meritt Musings 