What is faith? We can't see it, smell it, taste, or hear it. If we could, we wouldn't need it. Or, at least, it wouldn't be called faith, would it? Yet, the Bible tells us that faith is the title deed to things we "hope" for. (Hope, btw, is not faith.)
Real faith knows. There are no "ifs", "ands" or "buts" involved when you have real faith. You just know it, you believe it, and you receive it. You can still be blown away or surprised when the answer comes. Nevertheless, you had already believed to see what wasn't in sight yet. You believed it before you saw it.
In fact, you thanked God for it before you received it. That's how much faith you had.
Is that strange? We do it all the time in business. We pay for something and thank the person for that item before it even gets shipped. So, why shouldn't we thank God for something that He has promised to give to us?
We can't see salvation, yet we thank Jesus for dying on the cross --by faith. We thank Him by faith. That shows Him that we believe
(a) that He came in human flesh
(b) that He died at Gethsemane
(c) that somehow, His blood being shed on that cross bought our forgiveness
(d) that there is a heaven
(e) that we are saved from going to hell or having to try to pay for our own sins.
So, you see what I mean, right? It's all by faith. Faith in an unseen God is faith. That's why unbelievers are amazed and wonder how on earth believers can believe in an unseen God with no evidence to back up our theory. Whereas, to believers, it's natural. It's as natural as flipping a light switch, expecting the electricity to do its thing, flow down some wires and bring light into the room. But, unbelievers can believe in that because there's an explanation for it. There's a scientific reason why that light comes on. Really? So, explain it!
In my world, it's impossible to explain why that light comes on without including GOD in the explanation. Because, I wouldn't just stop at the question, "What makes the light come on?" I'd want to know, "Why are we even here in the first place to require a light?" And, where did light come from in the first place?
Well, if you believe and have faith in the Bible, you know that the first Creator of light was God and that He created light before He created anything else. And someone, by the light of a candle or the sun, wrote down this fact in the first book of the Bible called Genesis.
Genesis 1: 1 - 5, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."
So, you see, it doesn't matter how fast the light can travel now or how fast it traveled in the past, the light was THERE when God created it on Day One. (God doesn't have to follow the laws of physics. He can even be in the Past, Present, and Future all at the same time. I know that BY FAITH.)
So, how does faith work? It's very simple. It has to be simple because even little children have it. They have it in boatloads and bucketfuls. Kids are full of faith. Their brains don't tend to get in the way as much as it does with adults. And, the carnal, human brain is an enemy of faith.
I'm not suggesting that only stupid people have faith. Not at all. Quite the opposite. What I'm suggesting is that one would have to be a fool NOT to believe in God.
Psalm 14:1, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."
Faith works something like this: You hear the truth and you "know" it's the truth. It's much like when someone is lying to you and you know they're lying. It's a feeling that something's just not right. You know that feeling? If you're a parent, you may have had experience with being lied to by your children.
If you're a child, you may have had suspicions about the lie of Santa Claus, for example. You may have noticed that people skirt the issue and smile a lot when talking about him, and you may have reckoned that people were massively lying to you. But, this type of lie was accepted as seemingly innocent and "fun" for kids. Right?
Now, if/when someone came along and said, "Ok, you're old enough to know the truth: there is no Santa Claus," you would have a feeling of acceptance, of, "Aha, I knew it." So, when you hear the truth, there's an "aha" feeling inside of you, like a few of life's puzzle pieces just fit together exactly how they should.
It makes SENSE. It's logical. It opens doors to more truths. It just feels like a solid rock on which you can now begin to build something worthwhile, something that will last forever.
FAITH IS SEEING IT BEFORE IT HAPPENS.
If you can believe it or not, as one person recently said in a movie, "Some things are true whether you choose to believe them or not." ("City of Angels") You NOT believing in something will have NO affect on its veracity. God won't just dry up and blow away if you don't believe in Him. And, just because the vast majority believes in God doesn't mean He's like Santa Claus who lives only in the minds of little children.
The fact is that God is. If you don't believe that, you are in the minority. And, quite possibly, a fool. Sorry. Now, you'll notice that the particular fool that David is talking about said it "in his heart" which sort of signifies that this fool really felt that he believed it. On the other hand, many intelligent people will say that they don't believe in God, but in their heart, they know that God is real. They just don't want to admit to others that God exists. Why?
There are lots of reasons why people don't want to believe in God. First, pride gets in the way. Some people just don't want to allow for a "Greater Power" to interfere with their decisions or tell them what to do or how to do it. Some people think they hate God because they think God is so cruel and such a dictator, because they don't know Him or understand Him. Some people are afraid of God because they figure that He must be pretty powerful. Some people are very stubborn and not willing to listen to anything that smacks of "religion" or "religiosity". And, other people just feel that faith in God is beneath them.
In a sense, faith bypasses the brain, reasoning, common sense, reality, and explanation. It defies the natural. It's like an elevator that blasts through the lower floors and zooms up into the stratosphere, beyond human understanding.
Faith is thinking outside the box. What box? Who needs a box?
For the believer, faith is everything. It's our life. We are encouraged, in the Bible, to live by faith. You won't learn how to do that in school or university. And, if you feel that there's something really valuable, worth dying for in this world, forget about faith.
Well, seriously, you can forget about faith, but, even in the material world, you'll need faith to get ahead. Only, you'll need faith in yourself, your abilities, your teachers, your leaders, and in MONEY. Yessirree. It takes faith to believe that money is worth your time, energy, work, and attention. It takes faith to believe that your miraculous human body was created to go out there and earn money to "make a living" and that's it. So, whether you "believe" it or not, living on this planet requires faith in something one way or the other.
But, if you want to give it all up for something BETTER, you should STEP OUT ON FAITH. Real, honest-to-goodness, God-given faith will never let you down. You'll never lack, lose, or get lost. You may fall, you may slip, but God will never let you fall all the way down. In fact, every fall is a fall upward in faith. If you have faith in the one true God, and Jesus Christ, His Son, that's gold. It's better than money in the bank in this world. It's treasure in heaven, stored up for when you arrive.
We're all headed for the END sooner or later. But, how wonderful is the journey when it's a journey of FAITH. There are lots of us out there on the road living by faith in God. We're the richest, healthiest, happiest, most blessed people on this planet. Come join our caravan. We're on the right track, trusting in the Best Guide.
