What Faith Really Means

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation.”

-Hebrews 11:1-2

I’ve been mulling over this first post in a new series for a few days now, and I had every intention of starting off with some wonderful reflections of who I want to be as I get older, of the women of faith I most look up to and what I notice about them; but truthfully, today was one of those days where I feel like anything BUT a woman of faith. I’ve snapped at multiple kids, lost patience continually with my kids’ bad attitudes, and in general felt like I was failing at most things. I honestly didn’t even want to sit down and write this blog post, because we are supposed to “feel” spiritual when we write about spiritual things, right? 

Yet perhaps that’s the point: as we kick off this short study of Hebrews 11, commonly called the Hall of Faith chapter, the first thing I notice in the very first verse is that faith is directly connected to what we can’t see. Over the next few posts, we are going to look at several specific characters from the Hall of Faith, but something I notice as I read Hebrews 11 as a whole, is how most, if not all, of the characters are people who made big mistakes. Yet their faith continued despite their personal deficiencies, because their faith wasn’t in themselves, it was in the one who is ALWAYS faithful. So as we begin this study, let’s put aside our own failures at the foot of the cross and instead come to the One who is ready and waiting to forgive. 

So what is faith? These first two verses give us a pretty clear picture:

1. Faith is being assured of the things we are hoping for. Do we pray with faith? With a true assurance that our Father in Heaven, the Great Giver of all Good Gifts, will provide all we need? This isn’t a name-it and claim-it kind of faith. It’s a faith that is confident in the Father’s perfect plan and will and is continually working to bring its heart into alignment with Him.

2. Faith is a conviction that the things we can’t see are real. Last Fall, my four-year-old went through a stage where he was suddenly very aware that there are things that aren’t actually real; anytime his sisters mentioned magic, unicorns, or anything imaginary, he was quick to remind them that it’s not a real thing. The conversations turned interesting when he extended this to the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, which my youngest daughter still believes in, but then things started to turn ugly when he told his two oldest sisters that GOD isn’t real either. His basis for these feelings: since he can’t see God, He must not actually exist. Of course this is just his way of processing what he’s understanding as he gets older (although it should still be addressed through our family discipleship endeavors), but it also points out the very essence of what faith actually is- believing in something that isn’t visible. This includes a faith in God Himself, but it also extends, again, to how we pray– our prayer should be with a foundation of deep conviction that God is fully capable of doing all we ask of Him, even though we can’t see or possibly even imagine how that is possible. I love that word “conviction”; do we feel as strongly about God’s ability to answer prayer as we do other things that we hold a deep conviction about (like how we eat, our schooling choices, our parenting style, etc.)? Think of that thing that gets you fired up, that you can’t wait to share your feelings on with other people; we should feel that same level of conviction about prayer.

3. Faith is the only true way to salvation. Notice that the writer of Hebrews doesn’t say the Old Testament characters listed here were saved by keeping the law or following the sacrificial system

   

   perfectly; no, they were saved because they trusted that God would bring salvation through Christ, even though it wouldn’t happen in their lifetime. If faith is the only means for us to be made right with God, then it stands to reason that we should spend time really considering and studying what it means to be women (and men) of faith. To that end we are going to spend the next few posts looking specifically at the handful of women mentioned in Hebrews 11. Together let’s make it our goal to spend our lives maturing in our faith as we walk with the Lord.