THOUGHT FOR TODAY

WHAT IS FAITH?

PART ONE

“Now faith is the essence of things being hoped
the evidence of things not having been seen”
HEBREWS 11:1 (LITV)

In the book of Hebrews we have this brief description of what faith is in terms of expression. When God seeks to lay out to His Own what faith is He is not the least bit interested in an intellectual definition. He speaks of faith as evidence and expression. He reveals faith by what it produces in terms of reality. We read this of FAITH:

For by this (FAITH) the elders OBTAINED WITNESS (Evidence of pleasing God)
By FAITH Abel OFFERED
By FAITH Enoch was TRANSLATED
By FAITH Noah PREPARED (built) an Ark
By FAITH Abraham OBEYED
By FAITH Sarah RECEIVED POWER to conceive

When God in His Word seeks to impart to us what faith is He can set before us no other description than what faith produced in the lives of those who have gone on before. The true test of faith is not what we believe; it is revealed in what we do and in what we become. True FAITH is the EVIDENCING of the Life of the Son of God in our lives. Faith is the ability to APPROPRIATE the LIFE of the SON into the world in which we live. Faith without works is an impossibility. For in the holding of faith, a true and living faith, there must always be an accompanying evidence of its authenticity in the life of the true follower of Christ. Believing a thing is simply an intellectual acknowledgement of a prescribed doctrine or teaching but having the faith of God can never be without a living expression of that inward power.

We live in a time when faith is held as a teaching, a holding to some form of doctrine or belief; a religious persuasion. This kind of “faith” is an intellectual commodity rather than a life changing expression of the power of God. The deception of such a notion is clearly communicated by James…

“But become doers of the WORD,
and not hearers only,
deceiving yourselves”
James 1:22

The “deception” James speaks of here is the deadliest and most subtle of all deceptions for the real purpose of faith is to empower us to the DOING of that LIVING WORD. Jesus is that Word made flesh and the intent of Him sending faith into our hearts is to see that same living WORD become flesh in the substance and reality of our lives.

“Who through faith…
wrought righteousness,
obtained promises”
HEBREWS 11:33

Brian Troxel