Faith Moves From God to Our Hearts (Defining Faith Pt 2)

Last time, I tried to illustrate the concept the word "faith" carries with it. To sum up what I said: Faith has two aspects, a future hope and a present reality in our lives. For example, think of a chair. Faith looks at that chair, has a future hope in it that it will provide rest and will not fold under its weight, and then flowing out of that hope, produces the action of sitting in it. Faith will not only mentally acknowledge the worthiness of a chair. Faith also has the present element of sitting in the chair. But you won't rest in it until you hope in it.

But Christianity is not about sitting in chairs. What then is faith for the Christian? One way to define something is to describe what it does. To see what faith does, we'll look at how it moves, that is where it is coming from, and where it is going.

First, faith is coming from God to our hearts. Paul connects a raising of the dead that happens in the moment of salvation with faith. In Ephesians 2:4-5, 8 Paul says that when we were dead in trespasses, God made us alive with Christ, by grace through faith. This salvation by grace through faith is none of our doing, but a gift from God. Paul uses this illustration of life from death in the case of Abraham's faith in Romans 4:17, 19. In these verses, when Paul says God is one who "gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist" he is making a reference to the birth of Isaac. Isaac was a walking impossibility. But Abraham believed the promise of God, who is able to do these impossible things in light of what we know about Him as Creator. Isaac is a picture of every believer (Gal 4:28, 31). In other words, just like God, acting on his own, was able to create something out of nothing, just like he created light out of nothing, just like he gave Isaac life out of death, so it is with all God's people, the "children of the free woman." Paul makes this clear in 2 Cor 4:5-6. When talking about the message he preaches, (which is the same message he believes, 2 Cor 4:13) he says the reason he preaches Christ as Lord and not himself, but himself as a servant is because "God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. "

I highlighted the "gifts" and the "gives" so that you could see the main point running through all those verses. Faith has moved in the form of a gift from God to the people to which he gives it. Where did this faith arise from? God created it out of nothing. And he has put it in our hearts, that is, he has made it real to us. Or as Paul says in 2 Cor 4:6, he has given us "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Remember we said faith was a present grasp of some reality. Here that grasp has been created by God. And the reality is the glory of God. Notice how we know the glory of God: through the face of Jesus Christ.

What are some of the implications of this? First this emphasizes what I said in the very first post "The Fight for Faith." Faith is created by and comes from God. Therefore to get faith we should go nowhere else but straight to God. There is no creating faith on your own. We cannot raise the dead. We cannot create something out of nothing. Only the Creator can do that. We must go to him for faith.

Second, it highlights how Jesus should be seen. He is not merely a historical figure to the believer. He is a present reality, and through His face as we see it in the gospel, we see the glory of God. Or to put it more simply: Christians love Jesus. Paul calls the believers at Ephesus those who "love our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph 6:24). Jesus says that if we are of God we will love him (Jn 8:42). That's what it means to have this light shine in your heart. The heart responds with desire and emotion. There is no such thing as an emotionless Christian. A Christian is someone who is enraptured by the glory of God. Take Psalm 47:6-8 as an example of a normal Christian response to God. There are hundreds more, and I can't list them all here.

This response comes from the faith, so it too must be given by God. Ask him for it. If you don't have that joy in Christ and love for Him, ask God for it. If you do have it, ask Him to keep you in it and to give you more.

There may be some who are thinking, "But Christianity is not all emotion." And if you are thinking that, you are right. It's not all emotion. This look at faith is incomplete. So I'll talk about where faith goes from our hearts in a later post. And hopefully that will help clear up things. But some of what was said here should give you a good idea of where it's heading.

The Substance of Things Hoped For (Defining Faith Pt 1)

I realized that in my last post I threw around the word, "faith" a good bit. I think this is ok, because the Bible throws the word faith around a lot, too (it occurs 278 times in the ESV). But assuming everyone knows what faith means is not going to be helpful. I called my last post "The Fight for Faith." The person who doesn't know quite what faith is would be left scratching their head thinking, "The Fight for What?". And you can't fight if you don't know what you're fighting for, at least not in this battle.

There is a place where the Bible clearly defines faith, and I think that would be the best place to start for a good understanding of what faith is. Many probably already know what verse I'm talking about, so go to Hebrews 11:1. It says, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." I also like the NKJV that says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

The first part of the verse "Now faith is" shows that the author is about to provide a definition of faith. He uses two phrases in this verse that describe faith. First "the assurance (or substance) of things hoped for" and second "the conviction (or evidence) of things not seen." We can see that these are two different ways of saying the same thing. So lets take the two halves of each phrase and put them together. Faith is:

"the assurance and conviction (or the substance and evidence)"

of

"things hoped for and not seen"

So lets take each part and try to understand it. What does the author mean by "assurance and conviction"? I think the words "substance" and "evidence" are helpful in understanding this. I like these words cause it puts us in a scenario we understand: a court-room. In a court-room, people are trying to prove things. And the best way to prove things is with evidence. Not just any evidence, but substantial evidence. Like for example: Whereas the testimony of "that man killed my husband" is less than substantial, a pistol, covered in the suspects fingerprints, registered to the suspect, that has been proven by ballistics tests to be the weapon from which the fatal bullet came, would be a very substantial piece of evidence. Especially if there is surveillance video evidence that the subject fled the scene with said pistol. Those things taken together would be concrete and real. Such evidence would likely be the pillars of the prosecution's case.

In other words, substance and evidence are real. "Assurance" and "conviction" then, are the personal apprehension of the real. When you take hold of what is real, that becomes assurance. When the Jury sees those real factual concrete manifestations(i.e. evidence) of the claim "that man killed my husband" they will be assured of their conviction: Guilty. Or, to put it another way, assurance and conviction are a present reality. As real as the computer I'm typing on. It's substantial, almost as if you could touch it. So that's the first part: Faith is "the present reality" of "...something." Let's look at the second part now.

"things hoped for and not seen." This one is a lot easier. Most everyone can clearly get the idea of "hope." First of all, hope is future. This is where the "not seen" part comes in. Paul puts it this way in Romans 8:24: "Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?" In other words, no one says, "Gee, I hope I have enough gas to drive home from work tonight" as they park their car in the driveway from coming home from work that night. That makes no sense. You don't hope for what you already see exists. The word "expectation" comes to mind as a synonym of hope. So put together this synonym with the "not seen" part and you get: "future expectation." Now we can put the whole thing together.

Faith is "the present reality" of "future expectation." And in a later post I'll talk about what that "present reality" and "future expectation" is for a Christian.

The Fight for Faith

At times in my Christian life -especially in the darker times- I have doubted things that God has said. I used to be pretty ashamed at this (it is indeed shameful) and thought that somehow this was not normal. What is a Christian anyway, but someone who believes in Jesus? So then how can one really be a Christian if he doubts that God exists? (Or whatever it is that you may doubt)

This is a serious matter, one that I am certainly not alone in. But this post is not primarily about the dark times in our Christians lives, but how to understand and grow in them. So for encouragement, I will first mention a correlation that was pointed out to me by one of my friends, namely that my doubts came the most when I was not in the Word, spending time with God. This would seem to make sense, the further you are from something (or someone) relationally, the more questions and uncertainties there will be. But with the one you are completely open and honest with, the one you spend time with every day, there will be a trust. That's an important consideration.

Later God revealed to me the second fact. I don't remember quite how or when, but the second truth, that belief is the main fight of the Christian life, was somewhat revolutionary. Maybe it was from Future Grace by John Piper. or the doctrine of sanctification or some other thing. Most likely I learned it from the father who says to Jesus, "I believe, help my unbelief!" in Mark 9:24. But however it was learned, the realization came to me like the sunrise of a new day: Our doubt is not an unusual thing to be spurned and hidden. Our doubt is to be brought out in the open and attacked like the last enemy we have. But before I get ahead of myself, let me highlight the importance of this thought.

This changed everything for me. It changed the nature of the Christian life. I'm no longer fighting abstract concepts of pride, lust, self consciousness and whatever other sin issue may exist in my life. I do fight them. But I contend with them in one battle: The fight for faith.

How does this work? It works like this: Am I reading my Bible enough? No. Well if I really believed that the Bible contained the answers for my life, would not I read it every day? Am I thinking of myself more highly than I ought? Yes. Well, if I really believed that I was a great sinner justified by a holy God entirely apart from any work of my own, who is completely dependent on Him for life, breath and every small thing in my life, would I really be prideful?

The Christian life is the fight for believing. And we don't believe. Like the father said to Jesus, we do, but we don't. Not perfectly, at least, because if we believed perfectly, we would live perfectly. This is the main issue. This is where we stand or fall. The crux of the life of any believer is his or her belief.

But how do we fight for it? To me this is the most amazing thing. How do we fight for faith? The answer is you can't. Either you believe it or you don't, and you don't. This would seem like a hopeless situation. But let's turn once more to the father of the demon-possessed boy. What did he do for his unbelief?

First he openly acknowledged his unbelief. This is important. The worst thing a Christian or anyone can do with their unbelief is hide it. The Deceiver does his best work with secret things. Don't let it be something you quietly keep to yourself and worry about. The best thing to do with your unbelief is bring it in the open so that it will melt in the light of the encouragement of a Christian brother or sister.

Second, he took his unbelief to Jesus. This is important. Tell God that you don't believe. If you doubt, let God know about it in prayer. He longs to hear from you and strengthen you. He's not going to be like, "What?! You don't believe?! Haven't I sent you enough proof yet?" The Father knows the Christian life is more about a relationship then about proofs, he made it that way. So have a conversation with God, and be honest about the areas where you struggle, and ask for his help and guidance. Remember Lk 11:13 in your prayer. God longs to send to you His Spirit and the grace that comes with that. He won't withhold it if you ask. So ask.

Third, he believed. This is where you stand on what you know to be true in the Word of God and wait for your feelings to catch up. Of course you can't stand on what you don't know. So reading the Word of God and spending time with him is imperative. If you are praying to God, talking with other Christians and actively exposing yourself to the promises of God's Word, you'll find that God will do what you couldn't. He will cause you to believe.


Remember that this isn't a one time thing. This is an everyday, multiple-times-throughout-the-day-til-the-day-you-die thing. So keep at it. And you will find that as you start to grow in a relationship with God things in your walk, though still difficult, will start to fall into place, being centered on the main thing: Believing God.