Believing Faith...
- White Stone
- 7 hours ago
- 13 min read
Faith involves reliance and trust and it will endure in the very face of doubt
or inquiry, whereas belief is simply something most take to be true. Belief
may be sounded by information. Faith is known by application. Faith in its
truest form is when we have confidence in God to the point that it causes us
to undertake His will, which reinforces our assurance in all He does and
performs our certainty in all He says. Belief in its most elementary form is
about what we accept to be true, not what we do with it. Beliefs are things
we take to be true based on our logic and experiences. If we learn new
information, our beliefs can change. When someone’s beliefs are challenged
and changed it sometimes deepens and solidifies their faith — which is what
our Heavenly Father wants to happen. Faith is similar to belief in that it is a
specific kind and deeper intensity of belief. A person can believe in something
and not have faith. Faith requires a personal inspection. Many have believed
in God, but their faith in His ability to come through was lacking. Even though
we know God’s promises and can sing about His faithfulness, we often
struggle to act in faith because we were unsure. This does not deny our
belief, it simply reveals our humanity. In reality our faith remains unchanged
even as it grows because the word does not change. However, it is not that
our faith must grow. It is in whom do we have faith. And with that faith in
Christ, it will grow. Faith grows with every new revelation of truth. So, does
faith and truth change our lives…we answer in the affirmative. God wants to
move us from belief to faith and He wants our faith to grow. He desires this
so that as our faith grow we will trust Him to control every purpose of, and
for our lives. But this is a process, and it does not happen all at once. The
beautiful part is God is gracious and will give us opportunities to demonstrate
our faith. In God’s plan for our life, there are more things He has for us to do,
but to get there we are going to require more faith. For this reason, He will
graciously help us turn our belief into faith and all we have to do is ask for
His help.
Faith is layered with so much reason that even with the most familiar of
thoughts and purposes we strive to grow deeper to discover a much richer
meaning or treasure contained. The stronger our faith is; the more
extraordinary things will occur as His spirit leads us. If we believe only, we
do not plunge beneath its surface to ask, “is that all there is?” Faith is fidelity
to the Word even when we don’t see the object of our belief. Faith does not
come from humans but only from God. Faith is God’s energy, a gift not one
of us deserves, a gift given to us by Christ to wash away our iniquities, one
that makes Heaven our inheritance. Faith enables us to search our minds
and our hearts for God and to come to God to reason in humility and
obedience to His will, not our own. Understand how love is the only aspect
of holiness that covenants us by faith with God. Remember hearing that God
so loved and that He gave? Most of us believe that. But to really know that
requires faith in the One whom God gave and it requires that love for the
One who gave. If you love Me…keep My commandments and live by
the faith of the Son of God. We love with faith, from God the Father and the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Faith is more than just intellectual knowledge. It is more than just a mental
assent. Faith is not halting between two opinions. It is to accept God’s word
on all matters. Accepting God’s choice, His purpose. Faith is the principle of
separation. The concept of being set apart as sacred. Meaning belonging to
God. This is a recurring theme throughout the bible. Holding to that
understanding is how our faith will cease to wax and wane. Faith must be
grounded in the always faithful God and His will being done and not upon
some specific outcome that may or may not serve God’s purpose. It is trust
without reservation. Trusting is what brings the promises of God into our
lives. Faith is our choice as to whom we will serve in sincerity and truth. And
truth is found in the word of God. And so, faith is that light in God’s promises.
It is God behind us and God before us. Our faith has a way of revealing our
worst days, or weeks, or months, or years. Faith has a way of uncovering
the purposes and the mercies of God in our past, and giving light to the
promises of God for our tomorrow. The past becomes a list of hopes
deferred, relationships lost, opportunities squandered, all telling the story of
how we were elected. God has so sanctified every sorrow we’ve experienced
that it has become, in His hands, an upward step in His purpose. Our past is
but our wilderness experience. Christ himself has walked there. If the
children of Israel had learned from that experience they would have been as
the peculiar people spoken of. No matter how much guilt and grief is buried
in the years gone by, the ground bears the footprints of the God who works
wonders. When we rehearse the bitterness behind us, then, we need to tell
ourselves about this day that we were awakened. But that is not yet the full
story. True faith has a different interpretation than what our worst moments would suggest. True faith is knowing of God’s wondrous deeds and thoughts toward us. No matter how many sorrows await us, faith tells us that God
knows the thoughts that He Himself thinks toward us to give us an expected
end. And the sum of them is great!
Our mourning these days is great. It will increase. But so will our faith in God.
What will come from our mourning, our suffering is a deeper understanding
of the character of God and His thoughts toward us. This provision is
purposed by God. Consider Jeremiah…lamenting actually deepens our
gratitude, building our capacity for belief in the promise of His presence and
blessing in the midst of it. We have greater faith. It is this greater faith by
which we are secure in God’s love for us, when we know how He really feels
about us, we are free to come to reason with Him and to ask and tell Him
anything. Faith will keep us from faking fine in life. True faith strengthens us
to approach God with what is really going on with us. God thinks of us as
His. He tells us of His experiences of anger, of joy, of compassion, and even
of jealousy. Why would we not choose to be wholly honest with Him…He
already knows. It just so amazes Him when He sees our faith becoming so
full that He wants desperately to make us whole. He wants us to know that
this wholeness is the only way to have the fullness of faith and that is to
have the fullness of the Holy Spirit, the fullness of the life of Christ, and the
fullness of love from and for the Father. Our belief is that He’s got us! We
cannot limit what God can do, but we can limit what we accept. When we
truly believe, the equation of our faith will fill us up. God tells us how evil the
days are and how so much worse they will be. So, He admonishes us to
redeem the time, understanding what His will is for us. That we be filled with
the Spirit. In our reasoning we understand that means we must be empty of
all things of this world. And because God’s thoughts are toward us, He tells
us of this greater faith we come to. Faith to know the love of Christ that we
may be filled with all the fulness of God. Glory!!!
The fullness of our faith is not determined by our ability to reach it but to
receive it. We cannot add to our faith, Christ asks that we yield to faith that it
can be added onto us. If we want to believe for more, we must trust for more.
Trusting is not done out of strength but out of surrender. There is nothing that
God can’t do if only we would let Him. Every circumstance we go through is
an opportunity to hear Him, to seek His face in everything that happens. Do
not do anything to play down faith. Faith is our constant connection to God-
thinking. This is the mind of Christ. God’s way is the grace way. We give Him
glory and He gives us grace. We give Him praise and He gives us peace.
We give Him worship and He gives us confidence. This is the way of
God. Our faith is to move us beyond the temporal world unto eternal thinking. We cannot teach God anything, but we can understand the things of God.
We are but a faith-step away from being made perfect in Christ Jesus. Faith
gives us an advantage. Ignorance is torn down while passionate truth builds
up. Faith says test what you believe and see if it withstands the scrutiny of
critical thinking, that is, critical thinking based on the Word of God. Faith is
not established on what we think however, faith is built of what God knows
of us. He knows when we make His ways our ways. As our faith is, so will
God continually unfold new dimensions of His grace, His love, and His
kindness, and His wisdom.
By faith we are to expect days of troubled serenity ahead. If there be any
lingering wreckage of our sin, God will clean it up. There will be days that will
reveal more constellations of God’s goodness and glory to us, even as we
must walk through deep darkness to see them. By faith whatever else we
see when we look ahead, then, see the grace and the mercies God has
multiplied for us. See also the God who will never fail to preserve us with His
steadfast love and faithfulness. If only we had a believing faith to see. We
are hemmed in by the things behind us and the hopes before. We know of
God’s wondrous deeds of the past. And our faith tells us of the merciful
wonders to be. Both of these are marvelous and more than can be told. With
such a God behind us and before us, we need not allow the past to swallow
us, nor tomorrow to worry us. The past and the morrow belong to Him…and
most importantly, so do we.
It is believed that faith by both biblical and spiritual definitions needs no
evidence. Faith is something that is certain but not yet fully realized in our
present experience. It is the conviction of the reality of what we do not yet
see. It is the characteristic of those who live “as seeing him who is invisible.
We might even suggest that faith is ventured trust that is in no way contrary
to reason. If faith bypasses reason why would God give us a written
document. It is not just believing in God, it is believing God. It is belief that
may not necessarily rely on empirical evidence. Can faith provide a
connective understanding as to why our own belief must be based upon
historical reality? Therein is the highest mystery that spans the truth of
faith…faith always has an object. That is, one cannot have faith in some
unclear way. There must be some thing or person, one has faith in. Most
people do not understand how to place faith in its characteristic order. Faith
cannot be “belief without evidence” since it is not a belief to begin with. It is
a condition that may involve beliefs or may be caused by beliefs, although it
is not itself a belief. Rather, it is a state of trust. And so, faith embraces
testimony. Measure our faith by the Word of God and make sure we are
assenting to the reasonable, historical testimony of the prophets.
Faith is not something of a distance. Wow! What? Some have faith of being
in the kingdom. Millennium has past and we’re not there yet. Do we believe
these words: thy faith hath made thee whole, the kingdom of God cometh
not with observation, the kingdom of God is within you. Is that faith? And how
near is the kingdom? an entrusting ourselves where we risk ourselves
and our wellbeing to something or some person. Trust is exemplified
in a deep and mutual relationship.
Faith requires not trust from a distance but God becoming man might
qualify for such a demonstration. Everyone has faith, in this sense,
insofar as they entrust themselves. So, what is the very
distinctiveness of our faith? Its object is Jesus Christ, God Himself. And we
venture on the reason, the truth, the revelation of every word of God. We
place our faith in Christ as Savior and Lord. It is not merely the truth of the
gospel, and it is not merely the evidence and reasons constitutive of the
knowledge of the gospel, but we are literally entrusting ourselves to Christ.
And here is the essence of the mystery: we might know some truths of the
Creator’s determinative purpose by reason and evidence but, at a certain
point, reason and evidence run out and faith takes over and the Spirit of God
gives us what the mouth of God has spoken in secret. This moves us beyond
the measure of faith. Beyond becoming convinced by the preaching of the
gospel, the testimony of the Spirit, the richness of scripture, a work the Lord
has done in our own lives, answers to prayer, a world that appears designed
and finely tuned, needing an explanation for purpose and hope. We engage
the life of the mind of Christ and being careful for nothing, considering and
weighing out our reasons as we grow in faith and prayer letting our requests
be made known unto God. Many that hear do not believe, yet those that
believe have first heard. Faith cometh by hearing. The beginning, progress,
and strength of faith are by hearing. The word of God is therefore called the
word of faith: it causes and nourishes faith. God gives faith, but it is by the
word as the instrument. Hearing is by the word of God. It is not hearing the
enticing words of man's wisdom, but hearing the word of God, that will
befriend faith, and hearing it as the word of God. Think about how hearing
the word of God reflects in the meaning of our lives for God. Others are made
to witness faith in the relationship we have with God through Jesus Christ.
We become a model of how a person of faith should live their faith out loud.
People need to be encouraged and know others are praying for them, that
they are loved and not forgotten, that they are loved by God and that He
desires them to experience the grace, love and peace of God.
There is a purpose behind God’s calling us to come to Him. We see the
necessity of reason in bringing us to the threshold of faith. It is this vital
collaboration whereby we believe that God will reveal to us the truth in the
words of Jesus and his divine works as recorded in the bible. As such we
become eyewitnesses of truth. We were not there, yet our reliance, our trust
is in the One who makes known the strength of the evidence…it is faith in
God. None of this violates our free will, for our faith in God depends on our
personal “commitment” to Christ. For those of us who allow ourselves to be
touched by God’s grace, for faith is nothing short of a gift, then we can make
an act of faith that God does indeed exist and that He reveals Himself
through His Son to bring us into the fullness of life. When we come to God
to reason, we do not come to be rational, we come to be transrational, we go
beyond the realm of reason. We trust God and that is faith! Faith and reason
become like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation
of divine truth to believe all that is God. God wants us to know what we
believe and why we believe it. We are to have a well reasoned, evidential
faith that we can articulate to those who may have doubt. We do not share
opinions. God either is, or He is not. Jesus is that God, or He is not. Salvation
comes through Christ alone, or it does not. This is not a personal preference.
Historical reality points to determined providential purpose. Ensamples,
patterns, admonitions are for our benefit. Yesterday is a collection of ideas,
choices and possibilities. Faith is that event that creates a wise narrative
weaving our experience to hope and having that confidence that the work
God began, He will perform. This is the how and the why we can know why
we are the called. We are dramatic proof of the accuracy of the Old
Testament. How did Mary know what she heard was truth? It was written.
How did Jesus know he was the Son of Man? It was written. Has your life
been transformed? You know your experience to be true because you
understand, on separate evidence, that the one in whom you trust is Himself
trustworthy. And because God is God, His every utterance about the future
is to be utterly trustworthy. Believing faith is discernible. It emits a spiritual
light. Jesus perceived the strength or weakness in the faith of those around
Him. We hear him say, “thy faith hath made thee whole.” “Great is thy faith.”
He lamented to another, “O ye of little faith.” He questioned others, “where is
your faith?” And Jesus distinguished yet another with, “I have not found so
great faith.” The measure of faith is given by God, but faith in Jesus Christ is
a gift from heaven that comes as we choose to believe and as we seek it and
hold on to it. Faith is a principle of power, important not only in this life but
also in our progression beyond the veil into the most holy. By the grace of
Christ, we will one day be saved through faith on His name. The forthcoming
of our faith is not by chance, but by choice. We must realize that if we fail to
reason with every word, with any of God’s word, it is a sign that the adversary
is destroying our faith. Remember the words of Jesus, “I have prayed for
thee, that thy faith fail not”.
We view life’s events through the divine prescription that enables us to have
spiritual vision in this world because we view it from the perspective of
another world. When we reach perfection we realize that faith has been
leading all along to the person of our Lord Jesus, the author and finisher.
With believing faith we defy the wisdom of the world that tells us to live for
today. Instead we live in the present in the light of the future, and handle
everything that is visible in the light of the invisible. To live by faith is not to
live by what we can see and feel and touch on the basis of our sense
experience, but to live on the basis of what God has said and promised. That
is believing faith. It has its epicenter in our Lord Jesus Christ. It takes its
practical shape from what God has said and promised in His Word. Learning,
understanding, embracing, digesting, and applying every last word of
scripture. Everything about us will be assessed by our faith. The basis of our
expectation, the proof of what God has prepared. The word is written…we
know there is an election…we know the wise will understand…we know the
sealing is certain…we know of the time of trouble…we know there will be
great plagues, the coming of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords…we know
of the thousand years…the lake of fire, the new heaven, the new earth…and
by faith we know it is done.
📖 Applying the Study
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