What is faith?

Good morning, everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”

Our Bible verse for today: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: the righteous will live by faith.” Romans 1:16-17 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “What is faith?”

As we continue our study of Paul’s letter to the Romans, we’re still in chapter one laying the foundation for all that is to come in the letter. Paul has a lot to teach us about sound doctrine that will lead to strong faith, but there are some important principles that must be learned first, and one of the most important is the nature of faith itself.

What is faith, and how do we live by faith? More precisely, why do we have to live by faith? Those are important questions for Christians to wrestle with and to have answers for. They are also common stumbling blocks that sometimes prevent people from coming to faith in Christ at all.

What is faith? The Bible says in Hebrews 11:1 that “… faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.” The Amplified Bible is a little more descriptive, “Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen (the conviction of their reality – faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses).”

The Greek word for reality that was used in this verse is “hypostasis” which means “a firm confidence”. So, having faith in the Biblical sense is a firm confidence that God is real, the Bible is true, and we are convinced of that even if we don’t have visible physical proof of God that our five senses can detect. Faith in God requires us to go one step beyond what our human senses can confirm for us but to have that firm confidence anyway.

Now, although there is no direct confirmation of God provided for us by our five human senses (in that we cannot actually see God and we cannot actually touch Him), there is lots of indirect evidence that our senses can detect and which helps to build the case for faith in God. We don’t have time this morning to go into detail about all that evidence but it comes to us through God’s amazing creation, through the Bible, through thousands of years of Biblical history, through the evidence of transformed lives, and through the circumstances of our lives as we experience the Holy Spirit of God interacting with us personally day-by-day and moment-by-moment.

So, although we don’t have direct evidence of God in that we cannot see Him, touch Him, or audibly hear Him, there is a mountain of indirect evidence that helps to give us that internal confidence that there’s no way this cannot be true. Faith is coming to the point where we are willing to go one step beyond what our human senses can confirm for us, and to have confidence and assurance in God anyway. It is a choice that leads to a decision to believe.

That’s what faith is. Tomorrow we will think about how we live by faith.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

(If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

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