What is faith?

What is faith?  -   Ninety Five

     My child remember faith is the substance or title deeds of things hope for.   It is the title deed for eternal and abundant life.  A title deed in real estate is evidence of your ownership.  Faith then is the evidence of your eternal estate in God.    Faith is taking God at His word and asking no questions.   Faith is the evidence that you trust God and you know He only has you best interest at heart.  Faith is trusting in God’s goodness, love, mercy, grace compassion, power and all knowing wisdom.

     Faith is knowing that all things will work together for good.  It does not mean all things are good.  It is knowing all things whether good or bad will work together for good in the long run.  Faith knows that adversity, setbacks and problem are opportunities for growth, creativity, looking and doing things differently.  Adversity make us better not bitter.  

     Faith has two sides.  One has to do with the intellect.  It is an intellectual conviction that Jesus Christ is God.  The other side has to with the will.  It is a volitional surrender of the will to Jesus Christ as master, Lord and Savior.  Thomas believed and confessed to Jesus and said, “My Lord and God. “  My Lord is the volitional surrender and My God is the intellectual surrender. 

     Together you have saving faith.  Let me explain.  Saving faith is an intellectual conviction that Jesus Christ is God and a volitional surrender to Him as Lord and Master.    By faith your mind trusts God and the heart responds to the love of God.  The will submits to the commands of God and the life obeys in the service of God.  

      Faith is paradoxical.  It goes beyond reason.  That is why the natural man cannot fathom it.  It believes without understanding why.  It sings in prison.  It leaves where we are to go to somewhere the Lord tells us to go without knowing why.  It glories in tribulation and chooses to suffer.  The disciples rejoiced when they were beaten now that bothered me for a long time until I really went through my first real time of testing.  It is only the joy and love of the Lord that gets you through. 

     It accepts all things as the will of God.  This is not fatalism or pessimism.  It is not being a realist but your faith and trust in God is so implicit that you trust Him with your life.  You see the bigger picture.  You are not born with this type of faith.  You are born with natural faith which is trusting what you see or what others tell you.  Saving faith comes from hearing the word of God.  Somehow, someway you heard the gospel.  It ignited in your belief in God.  That is why we are commanded to preach the gospel to every creature that they might and believe.   We must tell them or they may not hear.  Like Ezekiel the responsibility for telling others is ours and with will also have to give an account for this.  Do not find yourself lacking.