Faith Is


Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: It never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but - more frequently than not - struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanated from God. - Martin Luther

FAITH IS

What IS faith? Webster's defines faith as allegiance to duty or a person; loyalty; fidelity to one's promises; sincerity of intentions; belief, trust, and loyalty to God; belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion; firm belief in something for which there is no proof, and belief with strong convictions. Well, that does not sound bad. Would it be wrong to banter these definitions about? No, not wrong, meaning it would not be sinful to use the dictionary definition, but there is much more to faith than Webster.

The rule of faith for a Christian is the Bible, so what does God's Word tell us that faith is? "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). Faith is a title deed to eternal life. Just as a title deed shows evidence of one's real estate ownership, so our faith is evidence of our eternal deed in God (II Corinthians 4:18).

FAITH vs REASON

Reason, on the other hand, argues that to have substance a thing must possess some degree of observable depth. Faith has no hearing, smell, taste, sight, or touch. It is without observable dimension, even of the first degree.

Faith is also taking God at His word and asking no questions. Imagine a little child being encouraged by a parent to jump into his arms as he stands in a swimming pool. The child walks to the edge of the pool, and falters. Faith in his parent is overshadowed by a fear factor. Reason tells the child that the water is deep, and the parent just might miss the catch. Will reason or faith win over the child?

Faith is also knowing that "All things work together for good to them that love God" (Romans 8:28), but faith does not believe that all things are good, or that all things work well. It does believe that all things, good or bad, work together for good to them that love God.

Think for a moment of all of the things that have two sides or two attributes: black/white; short/tall; new/old; male/female; day/night - well,you get the idea. Faith also has two sides. One side has to do with the intellect, while the other side has to do with the will. The first is one's intellectual conviction that Messiah Jesus Christ is God. The second is voluntary - the surrender of one's will to Jesus Christ as Lord and Master.

The copyright of the article Faith Is in Messianic Judaism is owned by Virginia Marin. Permission to republish Faith Is in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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