470 – What Faith Is

Last Friday I started a new series, “The Man Who Became Himself,” at the Man in the Mirror Bible Study. First up was, “How Did Abraham Become Himself?” (available online May 25th).

Abraham is nothing if not a study in faith. He was called to leave everything familiar to him and settle in an unknown land. By faith he obeyed (Hebrews 11:8).

He was promised a son, yet was still childless 24 years later. By faith, he was enabled to become a father (Hebrews 11:11).

Then God tested him by asking him to sacrifice the one thing he most wanted to keep–the son he loved so much. By faith, he passed the test (Hebrews 11:17).

What is faith? 

• Faith is believing God in the face of unbelievable circumstances.
• Faith is believing my Bible when it makes no sense, humanly speaking.
• Faith is relying upon the authority of Scripture over my own best thinking.
• Faith is letting the reality of the unseen rule over the unreality of the seen.
• Faith is subordinating the tumult I feel in my emotions to that previous decision I made in my will to trust Jesus.
• Faith is believing God will do every single thing He has promised, in its perfect time.
• Faith is not trusting God where He has not promised, but where He has.
• Faith is believing God will supply all my needs, and that in the chambers of His private counsel He has measured my need on the scales of mercy.
• Faith is continuing to believe, trust, and wait when the hot, scorching breath of adversity blows unrelenting across the landscape of my circumstances.
• Faith is not, not, not a leap into the dark; but a careful, reasoned step into the light, into Light, into The Light, into that glorious Light that sets us free, free at last, from bondage to sin, decay and death.
• “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).