FAITH — a decision, a process, a firm declaration.
“Just believe and you will be healed”, “Have faith in that job you are looking for” and other statements like these are commonly associated with having faith in God. But, is it as easy as that? Is it that quick? Like the use of a magic wand? Let us look into some scripture that can help us understand what faith really is:
What is Faith?
Faith is a decision
Key Verses: Hebrews 11:1–3, Mark 11:22–25.
Faith is a decision we make as believers to confidently trust in God — with assurance and anticipation that he is able to do what he said he will do. The beginning point of faith is believing that God is who he says he is, and the ending point is believing in His Word and his trueness to this Word.
Jesus says in Mark 11:23 “..But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart”. From this, we can see that faith goes far beyond profession with the mouth; it is a matter of the heart.
True faith causes a change of heart and helps us to appreciate life from God's perspective as we grow in pure, intimate, and genuine relationships with him.
It is not about how much faith we have, but how genuine it is.
Faith is a process
Key verses: Mark 9:24, Luke 17:5, 1 Thessalonians 3:10
Has any of us reached a point of self-sufficiency? Can we really say that we are at a point where everything makes sense? And we now totally understand how God works? The great answer is NO (1 Corinthians 13:9–12).
It is only after understanding this that we are able to humbly, sincerely, and continuously pray to God to fill the gaps in our faith — as sheep that need a shepherd.
Faith needs to grow. We need to continue in prayer and fellowship, serve, allow God to mold us into what he wants us to be and above all, feed our spirits with the great Word of God.
Growing in faith is a constant process of daily renewing our trust in Jesus.
Faith is unwavering
Key verses: Job 2:8–10, Daniel 3:16–18, 1 Timothy 1:18–20
True faith is indeed unwavering, after making the firm decision to follow Christ, comes strength and confidence to push on through the most difficult or challenging of situations.
Remember the story of Job? Everything taken way, yet he still says “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord!” — Job 1:21. Friends, what we see here is a display of deep understanding that God is in control and knows of every situation and occurrence, it's a display of complete trust and loyalty and one of firmness in the decision to serve God above all.
What about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who in the face of death declared in Daniel 3:17 that “..the God whom we serve is able to save us” 🙌 🙌 WOW! What amazing faith. Note what they continue to say in the next verse “But even if he doesn’t, we want to make it clear to you, Your Majesty, that we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up”. This is another great example of firmness and perspective.
It is easy to be deceived and think that life will be smooth and everything will make sense because we have confessed that Jesus is our Lord and Saviour, but that is not really the case.
We should be willing to suffer just as our master did. This does not in any way imply that God has abandoned us to the sufferings of this world, rather, he is working something out in the background — and therefore, we need faith and hope to keep running the race.
Hope is therefore a very important aspect of faith, as we cling onto it when the waters stand still. When everything seems like it’s not working out, hope is necessary to speak life into seemingly dead situations.
I pray that God will indeed help us keep our conscience clear as we treasure our faith in Christ more than anything else.
We should be faithful to serve God whether he intervenes on our behalf or not.
Conclusion
Faith is not about speech — how much we say in the name of God, or how we use the name of Jesus over every situation; not about action — it's not a display or show that we put up for others to see, faith is not about how much we believe that we shall get something; but about the heart and devotion to God.
Faith is complete loyalty to God, a process of growth, and a firm declaration to serve God, no matter what.
