What is faith? Faith is described as “Complete trust or confidence in someone or something or some cause.” We live in a very humanistic, secularistic world where most people are not interested to know the “only true and living” God or His Word – the Bible. The fact is that God can be known by those who are interested to know Him in a very personal way and what He is able to do for them.
The Bible gives us many great and wonderful examples of people who had real faith in God the Creator of the universe. The letter to the Hebrews explains faith and what it does for us. “Now faith is the assurance of things hope for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). In his commentary on faith, William MacDonald writes, “It makes things hoped for as real as if we already had them, and it provides unshakable evidence that the unseen, spiritual blessings off Christianity are absolutely certain and real. In other words, it brings the future within the present and makes the invisible seen. Faith is confidence in the trustworthiness of God. It is the conviction that what God says is true and that what He promises will come to pass” (Believer’s Bible Commentary, pp. 2194 & 2195).
Faith is absolutely necessary to please God. The Bible says, “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” (Hebrews 11:6). This means trusting God all the way and knowing that His promises are true and He will never ever forsake us. In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul writes about the patriarch Abraham, “No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew stronger in his faith, as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised” (Romans 4:20-21). As christians, we need to adopt Abraham’s example in our lives.
In our society “seeing is believing.” For the child of God it is quite the opposite, “believing is seeing.” This is exemplified when Jesus appeared to His disciples after His resurrection and Thomas was not present. When the disciples told Thomas that they had seen Jesus after His resurrection, Thomas responded, “Unless I see the nail marks in His hands, and put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into His side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). Later, Jesus appeared to Thomas in person and said to him,”Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe” (John 20:26-27).
Faith is the all-inclusive word in the christian life. For salvation, faith is personal trust in the Lord Jesus Christ who died for sinful mankind and was raised from the dead for his justification (Romans 4:25). In our prayers, faith is our confidence in making our requests known to God that He “will answer and show you great and unsearchable things you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3). Faith is required to love Jesus Christ “Though you have not seen Him, you love Him, … you believe in Him and are filled with inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Peter 1:8).
Over all, faith is essentially a “working principle” in the christian experience. Hence, the book of Hebrews lists the many “heroes of faith” as noted in the scriptures and concludes, “Those were all commended for their faith” (Hebrews 11:32-40). Christians walk by faith, not by sight.