what is faith?

September 26, 2003

over the past two weeks, i've been told by two people that they admired my faith. and while it served as a tremendous encouragement, it made me think about what i thought faith was. because had i taken what they said for face value, it would have inflated my ego. i must point out that people who said this to me were non-Christians. how amazing is that? it reminds me of the fact that when we live lives that are focused solely on proclaiming Christ in everything that we do, people will notice. when we live lives that are set apart for Christ, people will question, think and wonder. "live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. " (1 peter 2:12 [NIV]). that's living the life that leads to why. colossians 3:17 says "and whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him"

so what is Christian faith?
one of the most popular verses used to answer this question can be found in hebrews 11:1, which says "now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." it's about believing in the One who is greater than us. it's about putting our hope and trust in the One who is unchanging. it's about believing in the One who's ways are higher than ours. it's about trusting in the One who knows what's best for us, in every circumstance and situation.

faith is something given to us by God. i don't think it's possible to have faith without God having instilled it in us first. after that, i think it goes two ways. we can choose to put our faith into God when circumstances/trials (or life experiences) occur or we can put our faith into something else (like ourselves). when, by our actions, we put our faith in God, our faith is increased in several ways:

when we see God move
1) the truths in our minds have now moved to our hearts because what we believed to be true in our minds have been experienced in our hearts. what results, is that these truths are in the core of our being.
2) we trust God for more things, because we know He is exceedingly capable of providing for us in all circumstances

when we wait upon God
if we don't see God move immediately when we put our faith in Him, it can still serve to be an encouragement to us! by not immediately seeing a response, our active will of trusting God can result in a greater trust in Him because by holding onto Him, we will see how much we really need Him and that will drive us to put our trust that much more in Him

the next question might be, how does someone go about increasing their faith, or for that matter to have faith in the first place?
you simply ask. you ask God for faith in Him, or for Him to increase your faith in Him. "ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." (matthew 7:7 [NIV])

final words
faith is like a muscle. it needs to be exercised. the more you exercise it, the stronger it'll become. that's not to say that the onus is completey on us. God is actively involved in developping our faith. but there is responsibility on us. we need to constantly put our faith in God in all things, big or small, and trust Him to take care of it.

Posted by Leo Chan at September 26, 2003 3:36 PM