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What Faith in God is Not See also the reality
of faith “And the serpent said unto the woman,
You shall not surely die. For God does know that in the day you eat thereof, then
your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was
pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of
the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and
he did eat.” -Genesis 3:4-6 “Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’
Martha, the sister of him that was dead, said unto Him, ‘Lord, by this time
he stinks, for he has been dead four days.’”
-John 11:39 “The other disciples therefore said
unto him [Thomas], ‘We have seen the LORD.’ But he [Thomas] said unto them,
‘Unless I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger
into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not
believe.’” -John 20:25 ”And He [Jesus] said unto them, Why are
you so fearful? how is it that you have no faith?” - Mark 4:40 What Faith is Not Faith is not feeling that prayer is answered.
The average person who seeks to exercise faith depends upon what s/he can
see, hear, or feel. Testimonies concerning faith are usually expressed in
connection with feelings and emotions, or the various senses. Sense-faith is
based upon physical evidence or upon the emotions and feelings of the soul.
All who take this road as the basis of faith will sooner or later be
deceived. Faith should be based upon the Word of God regardless of any
sense-knowledge, or feeling-evidences. Many of us are constantly looking to
feelings as to whether prayer
has been heard or not. If we feel good, or if something happens that
encourages us, we think it is easy to believe; but if the reverse happens and
feelings take wings, we sink into despair. We are quick to accuse God of
being unfaithful and untrue to His Word. If we do not go this far we are quick
to imagine that it was not God's will to grant the answer. Many of us become
satisfied to go without what God has plainly promised. Faith has no relationship with feelings
or sense-evidences. When we think we have all the
faith in the world because of feelings, we have the least in the world; when
we think we have the least, we have more than at any other time in our lives.
Many people are surprised to get answers to prayer because when they prayed,
they thought their faith was nothing. We should not believe we are healed
because the pain is gone, or that we are saved because they feel we are
forgiven. We should not think that our prayers are answered because things
are working out that way. Instead, we should always maintain faith because of
what the Word of God says. The Word of God should come first in our lives, not
our senses. Basing faith on what we have done, how well we live, or what
experiences we have had will lead to failure in answered prayer. God does not
answer upon these grounds. He answers solely upon the grounds of grace and
faith in Him and in His Word. True faith is not trusting in another
person's goodness or faith. It must be personal faith in God and His Word.
Many of us continually seek someone with faith who can get answers to prayer for
us. This may work temporarily while one is learning about God and His Word,
but if we do not properly learn and develop a personal faith that refuses to
be denied, we shall eventually revert to failure and unbelief, and we shall
have to be satisfied with the modern theory that answered prayer is not for
everyone. The program that will pay is personal
faith in God, faith in Jesus Christ, faith in the Holy Spirit, faith in the
Word of God, faith in the atonement, and total personal consecration to believe
God regardless of anything that might hinder prayer. The right
program is not talking about faith, or the need of it, but the actual
exercise of it. Simple faith in the Word, regardless of feelings and
circumstances, is never possible for someone who lives only in the realm of
his senses, for he or she believes only what they can see, feel, hear, or
understand to be possible. This was the kind of faith Thomas had when he declared
that he would not believe until he had seen. It was the kind that Martha had
when she could see nothing but the natural fact that Lazarus had been dead
four days and "by this time he stinketh." This is the Wind of faith
taught and encouraged by modern religious leaders, but it is not the kind
required by the New Testament. Neither mental faith nor mere assent to
truth and dependence upon feelings is enough. The individual must come to life
and action before s/he will realize the benefits of active, living faith that
refuses to know defeat and failure. A person must learn to fight the fight of
faith and lay hold of God and His Word. We must learn that we are surrounded
by an unbelieving world and an atmosphere of doubts, that demons and fallen angels
and people have lived for centuries in unbelief and wickedness, creating currents
of doubt and mistrust that are very subtle, and that effects of the fall have
left in the lives of fallen men deep wounds of doubt and wavering that must
be healed. We must learn that we have to wrestle with powers of darkness and
currents of mistrust and unbelief which make it a struggle to exercise active
living faith for things that are not seen. We must not only learn how to do this, but do it to get results. All progress
in the Christian life is by trusting (faith). “This Good News tells us how God makes
us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by trusting
(faith). As the Scriptures say, The just shall live by trust (faith).” – Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; Habakkuk
2:4 Distinguished From Hope Outside the Scriptures, the word faith
has many different meanings, but in our present study we do not need to
concern ourselves with these. Within the Scriptures, faith has two definite, distinguishing
features. First, faith always originates directly in God's Word; second, it
is always directly related to God's Word. Faith is one of comparatively few words
actually defined in the Bible. This definition
appears in Hebrews 11:1. “Now faith is
the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” This verse might also be translated: "Now
faith is the ground, or confidence, of things hoped for, a sure persuasion,
or conviction, concerning things not seen." This important verse reveals several facts about
faith. First, it distinguishes faith from hope. Faith and hope differ in two
main ways. First, hope is directed toward the future, but faith is
established in the present. Hope is an attitude of expectancy about things
yet to be, but faith is a substance—a confidence, something real and definite
within us—that we possess here and now. The second main difference between faith and hope is
that hope is anchored in the mind; faith is anchored in the heart. This is
very strikingly brought out in Paul's description of scriptural armor
required by the Christian soldier. “But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on
the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation (I
Thess. 5:8).” Notice that faith together with love is found in
the region of the breast; that is, the region of the heart. But hope is pictured
as a helmet, in the region of the head, or mind. Thus, hope is a mental
attitude of expectancy concerning the future; faith is a condition of the
heart, producing within us here and now something so real that it can be
described by the word substance. In Romans Paul again directly associates the heart
with the exercise of faith, or believing. With the heart one believes unto [literally, into]
righteousness (Rom. 10:10). Many people profess faith in Christ and the Bible, but
their faith remains only in the realm of the mind. It is an intellectual
acceptance of certain facts and doctrines. This is not true scriptural faith,
and it produces no vital change in the lives of those who profess it. On the other hand, heart faith always
produces a definite change in those who profess it. When associated with the
heart, the verb "to believe" becomes a verb of motion. Hence Paul
says, "With the heart one believes [into] righteousness," not
merely "unto righteousness," but "into righteousness." It
is one thing to believe with the mind "unto righteousness," merely
as an abstract theory or ideal. It is quite another thing to believe with the
heart "into righteousness"; that is, to believe in a way that transforms habits, character, and life. In
the words of Christ, the verb phrase "to believe" is regularly
followed by the preposition into, to express change or motion. For instance, He says: “You believe
in [literally, into] God, believe also in [literally, into] Me (John 14: 1).” This
shows that the verb phrase "to believe" is associated with a
process of change or motion. It is not enough to believe "in” Christ
with mere mental acceptance of the facts of His life or the truths of His
teaching. We must believe "into" Christ—we must be moved by
heartfelt faith out of ourselves and into Christ, out of our sin and into His
righteousness, out of our weakness and into His power, out of our failure and
into His victory, out of our limitations and into His omnipotence. This
scriptural faith of the heart always produces change. It is always
believing into Christ and into righteousness; and the result is always
something definite, experienced here and now, not something merely hoped for
in the future. For
this reason, in John 6:47 Christ uses the present, not the future, tense. He
says, "He who believes...has everlasting life," not shall have, but already has, everlasting
life. Scriptural faith into Christ produces everlasting life here and now
within the believer. It is not something that we hope to have in the next
world after death. It is something that we already possess, something that we
already enjoy, a reality, a substance within us. So many people have a religion which they
hope will somehow do them good when they reach the threshold of eternity. But
true Bible faith gives the believer a here-and-now experience and an
assurance of everlasting life already within them. His faith is a real
substance within them. Because of this present faith, s/he also has a serene hope, a sure confidence concerning the future. A
hope that is based on this kind of faith will stand the test of death and
eternity; but a hope that lacks this present substance of faith is mere
wishful thinking, doomed to final, bitter disillusionment. Nothing
happens in the life of a follower of Jesus the Christ without faith; faith in
God’s faithfulness. · “This Good News tells us how God makes us right in
His sight. This is accomplished from
start to finish by faith (trusting). As the Scriptures say, ‘The
just shall live by faith (trust).’” – Romans 1:17; see also Ephesians 2:8;
Galatians 3:7, 11; 1 Peter 1:5; Habakkuk 2:4 ·
"But without faith (trust) it is impossible to please Him [God]: for s/he who comes to God must believe that
He is, and that He is a rewarder of them who diligently seek Him" –Heb. 11:6 ·
“Therefore
I say unto you, What things soever you desire, when
you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them.” –Jesus
the Christ recorded in Mark 11:24 · “And Jesus
said, ‘…As you believe, be it done unto you…’” and, “…According to your faith be it unto you” (Matt. 8:13;
9:29). This is an unfailing spiritual law (see also Matthew 8:10; 21:22; Mark
9:23; 11:22-24). No faith—no hope. Based Solely
on God's Word Let us turn back to the definition of
faith in Hebrews 11:1 and note one other important fact about it. Faith is
"the evidence of things not seen," or a sure conviction concerning
things not seen. This shows that faith deals with things not seen. Faith is not based on the evidence of
our physical senses but on the eternal, invisible truths and realities
revealed by God's Word. Paul brings out this contrast between the objects of
faith and the objects of sense perception when he says, "For we walk by
faith, not by sight" (2 Cor. 5:7). Faith is here contrasted with sight. Sight,
along with the other physical senses, is related to the objects of the
physical world. Faith is related to the truths revealed in God's Word. Our
senses deal with things that are material, temporary, and changeable. Faith
deals with the revealed truths of God which are invisible, eternal, and
unchanging. If we are carnally minded, we can
accept only that which our senses reveal to us. But if we are spiritually
minded, our faith makes the truths of God's Word more real than anything which
our senses may reveal to us. We do not base our faith on that which we see or
experience; we base our faith on God's Word. Afterward, what we see or experience is the outcome of what we have already
believed. In spiritual experience, sight comes after faith, not before it. David says: “I would have lost heart,
unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land
of the living (Ps. 27:13).” David did not see first and then believe.
He believed first, and then he saw. Notice also that the experience which
faith produced for him was not merely something after death, in the next
world, but here and now, in the land of the living. This same lesson comes out in the
conversation between Jesus and Martha outside Lazarus's tomb. Jesus said, "Take away the
stone." Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, "Lord,
by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days." Jesus
said to her, "Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would
see the glory of God?" (John 11:39 40). Here Jesus makes it plain that faith
consists in believing first, then seeing
not the other way around. Most carnally minded people reverse this
order. They say, "I only believe in what I can see." But this is
incorrect. When we see something, we do not need to exercise faith for it. We need to exercise faith when we cannot see. As
Paul says, faith and sight are opposite in their nature. Quite often, we find an apparent
conflict between the evidence of our senses and the revelation of God's Word.
For instance, we may see and feel within our bodies all the evidence of
physical sickness. Yet the Bible reveals that Jesus "Himself took our
infirmities and bore our sicknesses" (Matt. 8:17) and "by whose
stripes [wounds] you were healed" (I Pet. 2:24). Here is an apparent conflict. Our
senses tell us we are sick. The Bible tells us we are healed. This conflict between
the testimony of our senses and the testimony of God's Word confronts us, as
believers, with two possible reactions. On the one hand, we may accept the
testimony of our senses and thus accept our physical sickness. In this way we
become the slaves of the carnal mind. On the other hand, we may hold firmly
to the testimony of God's Word that we are healed. If we do this with genuine, active
faith, the testimony of our senses will in due course be brought into line with
the testimony of God's Word, and we shall then be able to say we are healed,
not merely on the basis of faith in God's Word, but also on the basis of
actual physical experience and the testimony of our senses. At this point, however, we must
re-emphasize that the kind of faith that produces these results is faith in
the heart, not in the mind. We must recognize that mere mental acceptance of
the Bible's statements concerning healing and health lacks the power to make them
real in our physical experience. Paul's words in Ephesians 2:8 about faith
for salvation apply equally to faith for healing. Thus
we may say: “For by grace you have been saved
[healed] through faith, and that [faith] not of yourselves; it is the gift of
God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” The faith that brings healing is a gift
of God's sovereign grace. It cannot be produced by any kind of mental
gymnastics or psychological techniques. Only the spiritual mind can apprehend
this kind of faith. To the carnal mind it appears foolish. The carnal mind
accepts the testimony of the senses in all circumstances and is thus ruled by
the senses. The spiritual mind accepts the testimony of God's Word as
invariably and unchangeably true and then accepts the testimony of the senses
only insofar as it agrees with the testimony of God's Word. Thus, David sums
up the spiritual mind's attitude toward the testimony of God's Word. “I cling to Your testimonies; 0 Lord, do
not put me to shame! (Ps. 119:31).” “Concerning Your testimonies, I have
known of old that You have founded them forever (Ps. 119:152).” The scriptural pattern of this kind of
faith is found in Abraham's experience (see Rom. 4:17-21). Paul tells us that
Abraham's faith was directed toward God...who gives life to the dead and
calls those things which do not exist as though they did (Rom. 4:17). This statement that God "calls
those things which do not exist as though they did" means that as soon as
God has declared a thing to be true, faith immediately considers that thing
to be true, even though no evidence of its truth may be manifested to the
senses. Thus, God called Abraham "a father
of many nations," and from that moment forward Abraham reckoned himself
as being what God had called him, "a father of many nations," even
though at that time he had not even one son born to Sarah and himself.
Abraham did not wait until he saw evidence in his physical experience before he
accepted God's statement as true. On the contrary, he accepted God's
statement as true first, and later his physical experience was brought into
line with what God had declared. In the next verse Paul tells us that
Abraham, "contrary to hope, in hope believed" (Rom. 4:18). This phrase, "in hope
believed," tells us that at this time Abraham had both faith and hope—hope concerning the
future and faith in the present—and that his hope concerning the future
resulted from his faith in the present. [Abraham] did not consider his own
body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness
of Sarah's womb (Rom. 4:19). Abraham refused to accept the testimony
of his senses. The testimony of his senses undoubtedly told him that it was
no longer possible for him and Sarah to have a child. But Abraham did not
accept this testimony because it did not agree with what God had said.
Abraham turned a deaf ear to the testimony of his senses; he refused to
consider it. He [Abraham] did not waver at the
promise of God through unbelief ... being fully convinced that what He [God]
had promised He was also able to perform (Rom 4:20 21). This clearly shows the object on which
Abraham's faith was focused: God's promise. Thus, faith is based on the
promises and statements of God's Word and accepts the testimony of the senses
only insofar as they agree with the statements of God's Word. A little earlier in Romans 4 Paul calls
Abraham "the father of all those who believe" (v. 11), and in the
next verse he speaks of those "who also walk in the steps of the faith
which our father Abraham had" (v. 12). This shows that scriptural faith
consists in acting like Abraham and in following the steps of his faith. In
analyzing the nature of Abraham's faith, we have seen three successive steps
or stages. 1. Abraham accepted God's promise as being
true from the moment it was uttered. 2. Abraham refused to accept the testimony
of his senses as long as it did not agree with the statement
of God. 3. Because Abraham held fast to what God
had promised, his physical experience and the testimony of his senses were
brought into line with the statement of God. Thus, what he had first accepted in
naked faith, contrary to the testimony of his senses, became reality in his
own physical experience, confirmed by the testimony of his senses. By many, this attitude of accepting
God's Word as true in defiance of the testimony of our senses would be dismissed
as mere foolishness or fanaticism. Yet the remarkable thing is that
philosophers and psychologists of many different ages and backgrounds have
agreed that the testimony of our physical senses is variable, subjective, and
unreliable. If, then, the testimony of our senses
cannot be accepted by itself as true and reliable, where can we find the
correct standard of truth and reality by which we must judge the senses'
testimony? Neither philosophy nor psychology has ever offered a satisfactory
answer. Indeed, all through the centuries,
philosophers and psychologists have echoed the question asked by Pilate as he
sat in his judgment hall: "What is truth?" (John 18:38). For the
Christian believer, however, the answer is found in the words of Christ to
His Father: "Your Word is truth" (John 17:17). God's Word is the ultimate, unchanging standard
of all truth and reality. Faith consists in hearing, believing, and acting
upon this truth. When considering the relationship
between faith and our physical senses, we must clearly distinguish true,
scriptural faith on the one hand from teachings such as mind over matter or
Christian Science (falsely so-called) on the other. The two main points of difference are
as follows: First, teachings such as mind over matter or Christian Science tend
to magnify and exalt the purely human element—such things as man's mind, or
reason, or willpower. Thus, these teachings are essentially man-centered. On
the other hand, true, scriptural faith is essentially God-centered. It abases
all that is human and magnifies only God, God's truth, and God's power. Second, teachings such as mind over
matter or Christian Science are not based directly, or even mainly, upon the
Word of God. Many of the things they assert and seek to make real by the exercise
of the human will do not accord with the teaching of God's Word. In fact, in
certain respects, they are contrary to God's Word. On the other hand,
scriptural faith, by its very nature and definition, is confined within the
limits of God's Word. We need also to distinguish between
faith and presumption. The line that divides these two is very fine, but it
marks the boundary between success and disaster. Presumption contains an element of human
arrogance and self-glorification. It asserts man's will, even when cloaked in
spiritual language. Faith, on the other hand, depends entirely on God, and
its outworking will always glorify God. It never takes the initiative away
from God. We come back to the words of Paul: Such faith is "not of
yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should
boast" (Eph. 2:8 9). John the Baptist sums up its attitude. “A man can receive nothing unless it has
been given to him from heaven (John 3:27).” Simply put, faith
receives, and presumption grabs. Back to Faith Download
passages of the Word of God regarding faith. (This link requires Adobe Acrobat Reader) See more about the kinds of faith Link to the “short list” of 99 benefits of the
750 New Testament promises The Key
That Unlocks All Promises Link to the list of 250 separate benefits
of the 750 New Testament promises “Beloved,
I wish above all things that you
may prosper and be in health, even as your soul
prospers.” – 3
John 1:2 See the reality of evil, Satan, or the
devil See the bondage of unrighteousness
(sin) and corruption See The Source of Sin, Sicknesses,
and Diseases See How to Get Health and
Healing From God Link to God's Plan for Mankind Thank you Finis Jennings Dake and Dake
Publishing Thank you Derek Prince Ministries and
his book Faith to Live By
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