Greetings and thank you once again for the opportunity to come to you this week and spend this time, spend each day this week in God’s word and in prayer with you. This week, we’re going to talk about the A, B, C’s of faith or the basics of faith or the fundamentals of faith. Now I love to come back to this topic over and over again, simply because it’s such an important part of our Christian journey. The Bible tells us we walk by faith or we live by faith and so this is how we have to live by faith, in God.
The Lord Jesus Himself was a great teacher concerning faith and He taught about faith, He recognized faith in the lives of people and He required people to have faith in God and He taught us about that and so it’s good for us to go back to this topic and remind us that these are the basics, this is how we’re supposed to be living and walking and exercising our faith in God and that’s what we’re going to do this week, I hope you will find that enriching. So, let’s begin with a very basic, what is the Bible definition of faith? Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1, the Bible says, ‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’ Faith is the substance of things hoped for so obviously, in order to have faith, you need to have things hoped for, things that you’re looking forward to, you’re anticipating, things that you are desiring, things hoped for and then faith comes in and faith gives substance to this.
Now when we look at the Greek, that word substance can mean to give existence, bring into reality the thing that we are hoping for. The word substance also means to be the foundation, the groundwork, the firm foundation for the thing you’re hoping for, your expectation. So, faith solidifies that expectation and the word substance can also mean the title deed, the proof of ownership. So, faith becomes your proof of ownership saying that the thing that I’m hoping for, I have because I have faith for it. So, faith entitles you, so to speak or gives you the title deed for that the thing you’re hoping for. Faith is also the evidence of things not seen that means because you have faith, for you it’s a reality even though it’s not yet tangible. Faith makes real what the senses cannot recognize or faith perceives as a real fact what is not revealed to the senses. So, faith becomes the evidence or the proof of existence.
So, in one sense faith is the proof of ownership and the faith that we have in our hearts is also the proof of existence, I know it’s there even though our senses do not recognize it. So, faith is so important when it comes to things that we hope for and when it comes to things we do not see. For things we hope for, it’s the proof of ownership; things we do not see, it’s the proof of existence, what is it? Faith, the faith that we carry in our hearts and we live by that conviction, that confidence, that assurance that we have inside of us, when it comes to things hoped for and things not seen. We’re going to learn more about this, this week. Let’s pray, Father, we thank you for faith in our hearts. Help us to grow in this and help us to live by this, in Jesus’s name, Amen
By Ps Ashish Raichur