“Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation.” (Hebrews 11:1-2, NLT)
It had been a few days by which my thoughts centered on faith. News events do not help to bolster my faith. Social media platforms can get discouraging at times when one sees what is shared about The Church. People can disappoint us, letting us down in ways we don’t expect.
There is no better place to return than to the “Bible Hall of Faith”.
From this one verse, I learn that faith:
- is a confidence
- it brings us understanding
- it gives assurance
- it earns us a good reputation
Faith is “acting on what God has revealed about His will and His character” (commentary from my NLT study Bible).
“Assurance is an active certainty that what God has promised will come to pass DESPITE our not seeing it” (again from the NLT Bible).
Faith brings a confidence and assurance, not in what is going on around us or in people, but in our God. It rests solely on the truth that God is Who He says He is and will do all that He says He will do both now, and in the time yet to come.
Faith believes that God’s Word is absolute truth for all time and His Word is unchanging.
Faith is also confident action based on God’s promises or Word to us. We live out faith through varied struggles, temptations, and difficulties as we know that He will reward those who sincerely seek Him:
“And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6, NLT)
Faith is action based on primarily two things:
- Faith must believe God exists – even in our difficulties.
- Faith must believe that God rewards those who seek Him.
Faith grows over time as we come to experience the trustworthiness of our God. Time and time again, He meets His people right in the midst of their crisis when faith is being tried and proved. Corrie Ten Boom once said, “Faith see the invisible, believes the unbelievable, and receives the impossible.”
I am thankful that faith brings assurance in our unseen God.
Assurance our God exists.
Assurance He will reward us as we continually seek Him.
Who, if offered, wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to revise a particular moment in their life story? Don’t we all have regrets? In her post, Do you ever wish you could {revise} a chapter from your life? HERE, Lisa Brittain helps us to explore and understand those feelings. “Our redemption doesn’t come through our own re-writes for who among us is able to know the mind of God or to see how the messy of our story magnifies His greatness and majesty.”
Come, sit a spell. Bring your coffee, your posts, and your thoughts. If you link up, kindly visit those who have drawn up a seat around you.
*** My own thoughts on faith caused me to go back and reread my own words from an old post and edit it a bit.
Image by mcredifine from Pixabay
