Why Study Faith?
Hebrews 11:6 6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Our primary motivation for wanting to have faith and be in faith, is that it pleases God. I want to please God! I very much want to see the day when I come face to face with my Master, and He says, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful in a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord.”
“… for he who comes to God…” The reason we want to please God is because we want to come to Him. We want to come to Him ultimately when we leave this life so we can live with Him in heaven for eternity (a much better alternative than the other place!), but we also want to come to Him in fellowship while we are here on this earth. You cannot approach God without faith.
“… for he who comes to God must believe…” Faith will involve believing something. The use of the word must means it is not an option or a suggestion, it is a requirement.
But it’s important what you believe. Everybody believes something. Even what we call “unbelief” still involves believing something. An atheist believes that there is no God, and will ignore evidence to the contrary, because the only “evidence” he will accept is what he can perceive with his physical senses.
So he who comes to God must believe two things:
That He is. At the basic level, that means you believe that God exists. Well, that’s kind of a no brainer. If you don’t believe God exists, you’re not going to try to come to Him, are you? But believing God exists is not enough. The demons believe that God exists, and they tremble. They do not want to come to Him, they want to stay away from Him as much as possible.
So it is more than just believe that God exists. You must believe that He is…. He is what? Or more specifically, what is He to you? Is He your Savior? Your Healer? Your King and Lord?
That He is a rewarder. The second thing that we must believe is that He is a rewarder. We must believe that we will get something out of seeking God. The gospel is inseparable from the promise of a reward – it permeates every part of the Bible. Every promise of God is a promise of a reward. There are rewards to be gained both in this life and the life to come.
But who does God reward? “… God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” So that is an implied third step: if you believe that He exists, that He is, if you want to come to Him, if you believe that He is a rewarder, then you will diligently seek Him. The reward does not fall on you automatically. It will take some effort and diligence on your part.
What is the greatest reward that we could have? That we find Him! Having a personal relationship with the God of the universe.
Genesis 15:1 1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”
God told Abram that He was his reward. And not just the “booby prize” – but an exceedingly great reward. (for more on this subject, see my post Looking for God’s Reward.)
Faith as a Lifestyle
Romans 1:17 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”
The quotation is from Habakuk 2:4. The just – those that are righteous and in right-standing with God – shall live by faith. Faith is to be their lifestyle. This scripture was the “foundation text” of Paul’s revelation (of Martin Luther’s, also).
2 Corinthians 5:7 7 For we walk by faith, not by sight.
Our “walk” is how we order our lives, our behavior, our motivation. Everything that we believe, everything that we say, everything that we do, should issue from and be influenced primarily by our faith in God and our belief in His promises, and not from what we can perceive by our physical senses. The next couple of verses say:
2 Corinthians 5:8-9 8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.
9 Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.
And how are we going to be well pleasing to Him? By making faith our lifestyle. Faith should be all pervasive in our life. In fact, Paul says
Romans 14:22-23 22 Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves.
23 But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin.
The context of the above verses is what to do about certain religious dietary laws. Paul’s point is that if you feel that eating certain things or drinking certain things is wrong, if you can’t do it in faith and thank the Lord for it while you are eating or drinking it, then to you it is wrong.
If we do things motivated by fear, which is the opposite of faith, then we have sinned, which means we have missed the mark of living by faith. Now it’s not something we should get under condemnation about, especially since condemnation itself does not come from faith and so it is sin (missing the mark) also. But we should recognize that we have areas to grow in.
The Foundation for Faith
Faith is Trust in a Person
The word faith appears 247 times in the Bible (KJV). There are only two occurrences in the Old Testament; one we’ve seen, which is Habakuk 2:4 The just shall live by faith. The other is Deut 32:20.
Is that to say that people in the Old Testament did not have faith? Not at all. Hebrews 11 lists many “heroes of faith” from the Old Testament, the most prominent being Abraham. The Old Testament uses a different word than “faith” to describe the saints’ reliance upon God – Trust.
In its most basic form, faith is trust, and specifically, trust in a Person, God. Why can we have faith in God? Because He is faith-ful, and He is trust-worthy. It takes two things for us to be able to develop trust in a person; we can call these the foundation pillars upon which trust is built:
- They must be true to their word. They must do what they say. There is a saying that a person is only as good as their word. If their word is no good, they are no good; or not worthy of trust.
- You must know that they have your best interests at heart. A person may be true to their word and do what they say, but if what they are saying is they are out to get you, you’re not going to have any trust in them.
Childlike faith – is an implicit trust in a parent. If something breaks, you just know Daddy can fix it. A child doesn’t worry about it, or wonder how it’s going to be done, he just hands it over and says “Daddy, fix!”. If you have an owie, you just know that Mommy can put a band-aid on it, kiss it, and make it better. Trust.
As Christians we realize that to have faith in God, we need to believe His Word. That’s item #1 above. And so we study His Word, find out what the promises are, the steps we should take to be in faith, etc. And that is a good thing. But sometimes we can concentrate too much on the steps of faith and what we should do, turning it into some kind of formula. We can get too technical. We try to have faith in His Word apart from having faith in God.
Or, to turn it around and say it another way, we can build our faith by concentrating on how much God loves us, what He’s done for us, and how much He wants us to have good in our lives. That is item #2 above. Faith and trust stem from relationship.
1 John 4:16-18 NASB 16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
We need to come to know and believe the love which God has for us. I heard a preacher say that the greatest expression of love is giving. John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave…. John 15:13 Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend. And He did not stop at giving us His Son.
Romans 8:32 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
Jeremiah 29:11 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Faith in His Word
We have already touched on the fact that for a person to be trustworthy, their word must be good. You must be able to rely on their word, every time. All it takes is one time for someone whom you trust to break their word to you, and your trust in them is shaken.
Human beings, since they have limited resources and abilities, may promise something that they are unable to perform. Circumstances may crop up that prevent them from fulfilling their promise, even though they want to. And you can forgive them for that.
But that is not a problem with God. He never makes a promise He cannot keep, and He keeps every promise. He is not limited in resources or ability that would prevent Him from fulfilling His Word. There is no circumstance that can come up that He is not aware of beforehand and make provision for. The very meaning of “provision” is to see ahead.
This entire universe was created by the Word of God (and God said, ‘Let there be light’), and is currently being held together by the Word of His power (Heb 1:3). If God’s Word were to be found lacking, the very foundation of the universe would be undermined and fall apart.
God has never broken His Word, no matter when it was spoken and whom it was spoken to. And He never will.
Psalms 89:34 34 My covenant I will not break, Nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips.
Psalms 138:2 2 I will worship toward Your holy temple, And praise Your name For Your lovingkindness and Your truth; For You have magnified Your word above all Your name.
Numbers 23:19 19 “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
God’s Word is more important to Him than the fact that He is God. Think of it this way – who is the father of lies? Satan. What would happen if God lied, even just once? Satan would become God’s master. And God is not about to let that happen. He would rather have this whole universe, including Himself, blink out of existence rather than turn it over to the devil.
What Is Faith?
Hope
Hebrews 11:1 1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
If we are looking for a definition of faith, then a verse that says “Now faith is…” is probably a good place to start.
If faith is the substance of things hoped for, we’re going to have to find out what hope means.
Hope: the feeling that what is wanted or desired will happen. A happy anticipation of good.
The definition involves two things.
- You are looking for something good. You don’t hope for things you don’t want. That is despair, the opposite of hope.
- It is looking toward something in the future that has not happened yet.
Before we can have faith, we’re going to have to have hope. Hope is a very powerful thing. When you have it, it can sustain and strengthen you. When you don’t have it, you are weak and vulnerable. Hope has to do with what you are expecting.
Proverbs 13:12 12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.
Hebrews 6:17-19 17 Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath,
18 that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.
19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil.
Have you ever had a time when you felt there was no hope, you were hope-less? It’s an awful feeling, isn’t it? It makes your whole heart sick.
Hope can act as an anchor for our soul. Our soul consists of our mind, will, and emotions. An anchor is something that gives stability, that prevents a boat from just drifting off at the mercy of the elements.
1 Corinthians 13:13 13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Cor 13 is the love chapter. It concludes with a list of three things that will abide, or remain – i.e., that are eternal. That means these things will be in heaven. Faith, we are studying about. Love is the greatest. But notice how hope is included in this list. Hope is eternal.
The second thing we saw in the definition of hope is that it involves things in the future.
Romans 8:24 24 For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees?
You cannot see (or perceive with the physical senses) something that is in the future. You have to use your imagination. Things that are in the future are intangible, they have no physical substance. Faith gives substance, or tangibleness, to the things we hope for.
Hope is like a picture or image on the inside of you. I heard one preacher say that hope is like the blueprint for our faith. Let’s say you are going to build a custom house, your dream home. What do you do? You get ideas of the features you want it to have; how big it is, how many bedrooms, whether it’s one or two story, the style of the architecture. You’ll probably work with a designer who will help conceptualize the house with drawings, etc. Once you settle on the floor plan and look, the architect creates a series of technical drawings for the specifications of your house that the builders need to create it.
Question: would you be excited about those plans? You bet. When you get the finished plans, you might call your friends over and say, “Come see my house!” Now they might not get as excited as you looking at those plans, because they do not have the same inner visualization that you do. But you can see it – you have that picture on the inside of you.
But, those plans have no substance. They are just paper and ink. You can’t live in it. What is required is to bring the raw materials – wood, pipes, wire, concrete, glass, tile, paint, etc. – along with the construction workers to take those plans and give substance to it.
You cannot build a structure without a plan. An experienced carpenter might be able to build a simple structure like a shed or a doghouse without writing anything down, but they still have an image on the inside of them of what they want it to look like, their goal.
Your faith cannot rise above the image you have on the inside of you. What are you expecting? If you cannot see yourself with that thing, you will not be able to have faith for it.
Evidence
The second thing we are told about faith is that it is “… the evidence of things not seen.”
What is evidence? Thinking of it in the context of a courtroom, evidence is proof. It is proof of things not yet perceived by the physical senses.
Hebrews 11:1 AMP 1 NOW FAITH is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].
Several translations bring out this concept of a title deed (also called a deed of trust). A title deed is like a receipt that proves you own something. When you buy a house, your name goes on the title deed. But, if you have a mortgage, someone else’s name goes on there too – the lender’s.
Think of a car. Maybe you took out a loan to purchase it. What happens when you pay off the loan? They send you the pink slip, the title to that car, that says you own it exclusively.
When you purchase something at a store, they give you a receipt. That is the evidence and proof that the item belongs to you.
Do you believe in Jesus, that He exists? Do you believe that He died for your sins? Do you believe in heaven, that there is a place prepared there for you? I bet you do!
But, have you ever seen Jesus? Do you know what He looks like? Have you ever seen heaven? No? And yet you still believe in it. You believe it so strongly that they literally could not beat it out of you with a stick.
You believe it even though you don’t see it. You don’t have to see it – because you have the proof, the assurance, the title deed. Where is that title deed written? “It’s in the Bible”. That’s true, but having something written in the Bible is not enough. “But doesn’t it say ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever would believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life’? Doesn’t it say ‘For God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth?’ ”
Yes, it says all those things. But having those things written in the Bible will not do you any good unless it is also written in your heart. And to do that involves you doing something – you have to make it personal. It’s not just “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,” but “For God so loved me that He gave His only begotten Son so that when I believe in Him I will not perish but have everlasting life.” It’s “For God desires me to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.”
When we see something in the Word, and we personalize it for ourselves and believe that God wants it for us, then we have to act on it. In the case of salvation, we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
In fact, that is how we should look at the Word of God. We should be looking for what it says about us, who we are, what we have, and what we can do. And instead of looking at yourself and how you don’t measure up, start agreeing with what the Bible says. That takes faith.
If you’re born again you already know how faith works. You’ve already put it into practice. You’re already a faith person.
There are other areas in our lives where faith can be applied. Two of the main areas that are common to most every human being and where we struggle in are health and finances. The Bible has a whole lot to say about these two subjects. Faith can work the same way in these two areas as it does in salvation. The principles and application are the same.
Faith is Now
We saw that hope deals with things in the future. Heb 11:1 says, Now faith is…’ or you could say, faith is Now. Faith will take those intangible things of the future that you hope for, and bring them into the present. You will find that is a common theme in the places where the Bible talks about faith – faith believes it has it now, based solely on what God says, and not what our physical senses or our circumstances say.
For example, if you are sick in your body and say, “God will heal me someday”, that is an excellent place to start – it means you have hope – but you haven’t really reached a place of full faith yet because you’re still putting it off to the future. Faith looks at 1Pet 2:24 “… and by His stripes we were healed” and says “If I ‘were healed’ then I am healed! Thank you Jesus for healing me!”
Faith begins thanking God for the results even before you see them. Here is another familiar verse that tells us to do this:
Philippians 4:6 6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;
Instead of worrying, we are to make our requests known to God through prayer and supplication (a supplication is a request, a prayer where you ask for something). Your request is what you want God to do for you. A lot of people spend the majority of their prayer time telling God what is wrong with them. They are focusing on the problem. But faith puts its main focus on the solution.
Also notice what we are to offer with the prayer and request – it says make our requests known through prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Thank God for what? For your problems? No, for the solution! Thank God that He has heard your prayer, and then this verse kicks in:
1 John 5:14-15 14 Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.
It is when you make your requests known to God, and begin thanking Him that He has heard you and for the answer, that is when you will get the effects of Phil 4:7:
Philippians 4:7 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Make the Word Your Final Authority
To be successful in faith, we will need to put the Word of God first place, and make it the final authority in our lives. There is an old saying, “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it for me.”
We should judge everything we hear by the Word of God. Every teacher, every preacher, our pastors, what your friends or family say – it all needs to be compared to scripture before we embrace it and believe it.
We should be like that old Burger King commercial, “Where’s the Beef?” We should be asking, “Where’s the scripture?” Any teacher of the Bible who is serious about presenting God’s word accurately will welcome being judged by the Word.
We should judge even the very thoughts in our head by the Word of God. Not every thought in your head is from you. There are three sources of thoughts – yourself, God, and the world and/or Satan. That is why 1 Corinthians 10:3-5 says we need to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
We should constantly be examining what we believe in light of what the scripture says. I find that I am constantly having to re-adjust my thinking, that I have traditions that I have believed that really don’t measure up to what the Word actually says.
We should give the Word of God precedence over our experience. Our attitude should not be, “This is what I experienced, so that must be what God’s will is for me.” What you experience does not determine God’s will. God’s will is set forth in His Word. If we aren’t experiencing what God promises in His Word, it’s most likely because we haven’t fulfilled the conditions. Almost all of God’s promises are conditional.
For example, if you know somebody who died and was not saved, would you believe it was not God’s will for them to be saved? No, because 1 Timothy 2:3-4 clearly states that it is God’s will for all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Jesus Christ died for the sins of the whole world. If someone does not get saved, it is because they did not fulfill the conditions. What are the conditions? We have to individually accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We have to confess Him as our Lord, and believe God raised Him from the dead. Then we’ll be saved.
We need to give the Word of God preeminence over our circumstances. If God’s Word promises one thing, but our circumstances look to be the opposite, which are we going to side with, which are we going to believe? The Word of God has the ability to change our circumstances, when we believe it. That’s what it means to walk by faith and not by sight.
Continued in Part Two
