What Is Faith?
“Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Heb 11:1)
Faith asks us to forgo what we see, think and feel and instead seek God and wait for His lead.
Faith is the opposite of sight.
Many people pray to the Lord, knowing He can help them because He is all powerful, but when He doesn’t act immediately they give up. This impatient attitude and then taking matters back into our own hands instead of letting our cares rest in the hands of God is a lack of faith. God never said: God helps those who help themselves.
The answer to our prayer requests are found by doing and acting the way the Lord teaches. “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”( Luke 11:28)
Let me show you a Biblical example.
In the story of Daniel in the lions den, Daniel refused to pray to King Darius the king of Babylon. He knew there was a law forbidding people from worshipping anyone other than King Darius, in fact, he even knew the consequence of disregarding this law would be death in a lions den.
However, Daniel’s faith in the Lord Jesus Christ was solid. He knew that worshiping anything/anyone other than the Lord would grieve the Lord, so he remained faithful to the Lord.
Daniel continued his practice of praying three times a day despite this law and low and behold, King Darius found out and Daniel suffered the consequence of his allegiance to the Lord by being thrown into a den of lions.
But, when you are a follower of the Lord, “no weapon formed against you will prosper.” (Isaiah 54:17) God saw Daniel’s extreme faith over fear of the consequences and Daniel’s faith was rewarded- he was spared death due to the fact that the Lord closed the mouths of the lions.
The King was so shocked that Daniel was ignored by the hungry lions that he was certain Daniel’s God saved him. Therefore he ordered everyone in his kingdom to worship the God of Daniel.
“I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel.
“For he is the living God
and he endures forever;
his kingdom will not be destroyed,
his dominion will never end.
He rescues and he saves;
he performs signs and wonders
in the heavens and on the earth.
He has rescued Daniel
from the power of the lions.”
So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.(Dan 6:26-28)
So what does this mean for us? This is actually a story of blessing for obedience. When we worship anything other than the Lord, we miss out on blessings.
How do we know if we are worshipping something/someone more than the Lord? Let’s ask ourselves a few questions:
Do we work in a job that has us lie or fudge numbers for the company and therefore are promoted for our business acumen?
Do we lie in court for our client in order to win cases and therefore worship our status in the legal community?
Do we put our family second in the name of ministry, to jet set around the coutry giving sermons, book signing and hob nobing with those in the church instead of staying “in season” and keeping our marriage and family first?
God created the world and there is a season and a time for everything- a divine order to life. If we jump ahead, not trusting God to be our ultimate provider, we can miss out on critical family years that we can never get back.
God’s ways are perfect and he leads us to a life of joy, peace and the desires of our heart which most would say includes stable relationships.
We have all have chosen our way over the still small voice in our soul that was trying to lead us down another path. Most of us have suffered some fairly significant consequences because of it. But God is always faithfully waiting for us to turn towards Him and acquiesce our choices to His so that our life can be full of blessings. It’s simply a choice. The Lord is joyfully waiting for us to fully trust Him and His guiding ways.
Our faith in God without sight- without assurance that we will be okay, is the act that makes the Lord move on our behalf.
Matthew 9:22 Jesus turned and saw her. “Take courage, daughter,” He said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was cured from that very hour.
Matthew 9:29 “Then He touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith it will be done to you.”
John 4:50 “Go,” said Jesus. “Your son will live.” The man took Jesus at His word and departed.
Malachi 3:10. “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, test me in this says the Lord almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out for you so much blessing there will not be room enough to store it.”
Faith in God for provision, help, healing and all aspects of life can be found when we submit to God and follow His ways. When we do this, we have attached ourselves to the vine and His power can flow into our clean, submitted lives.
Ephesians 3:20 “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us”
Faith in God never fails.
Food For Thought,
Lisa
For more on this topic see this post.
