Hebrews 11:1 – Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
The Bible provides such awesome definitions. I was praying & thinking about my own lack of faith today and trying to define faith for myself. God brought that verse back to mind.
I love having logic, proofs, arguments, and evidence for everything I stand behind. That’s the way I am. But unfortunately, empirical evidence can only get you so far. Truth is not always provable. You can try to muscle your mind around as far as it’ll go, but some things are, as we read in Hebrews, “things not seen”.
Now that verse, Hebrews 11:1, seems like a big oxymoron. If something is hoped for, it’s not yet substantial (you don’t have it). If something is invisible, it has no evidence. Enter faith. Faith is knowing the unknowable. It’s believing what can’t be proved.
Faith is scientifically stupid; it is illogical; it is scary.
And that’s all pretty negative, isn’t it? Faith isn’t looking too attractive. So why would God ask for our faith? Why would God state four times, “the just shall live by faith.” Why would God make faith the prerequisite for salvation? Well, I think this may be a little part of the answer:
Our faith is a channel for God’s power. James 1:6 tells us that a man without faith has no backbone. The opposite of faith is doubt, and that man’s doubts leave him “like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.” That man can accomplish nothing of true eternal value.
Yet a man with faith “the size of a mustard seed” can move mountains!
Just read through the rest of Hebrews 11. It’s a long list of things God did through the faith of simple men. God wants each of us to accomplish things as spectacular as those men and women of faith accomplished. I want to be on that list. I assume you do too. All it takes is a little faith.
