Faith
(Reflection - March 2004)
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity (I Cor. 13:13).
Though faith comes first in the list in I Corinthians 13, we know it isn’t the greatest of the three. Still, it is vitally important, for “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6).
Faith defined
So what is “faith?” This is something scripture defines for us:
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things
not seen” (Heb. 11:1). Faith is the solid thing; the firm, concrete
thing; the proof; it’s what we can grab on to.
Though we can’t see or touch eternal things, faith makes them a reality. Through faith, “We fix our eyes (of faith) not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (II Cor. 4:18). We make a mistake if we think that our doctrines are the substance and evidence of things hoped for or unseen. Doctrines should lead us to faith; they give us reason to trust in God, but it is our faith and not our doctrines which are the substance and evidence.
In the gospels
When Jesus uses the word “faith” in the gospels, it is generally in
connection with healing people: To the blind man he said, “receive thy
sight, thy faith hath saved thee” (Luke 18:42); to the Samaritan leper,
“Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole” (Luke 17:19); to
the Canaanite woman, “O woman, great is thy faith…and her daughter was
made whole from that hour” (Matt. 15:28); and to the woman with the
issue of blood for 12 years, “daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole”
(Matt. 9:22). Their faith in Christ saved them. It made them whole.
On the other hand, to the scribes, Pharisees and hypocrites he said: “Ye have omitted the weightier matters of the law – judgment, mercy and faith” (Mark 4:40). One lesson, surely, is that the Lord will find faith where there is faith; not necessarily where it is expected that he will find it. He didn’t find it among the religious leaders of that time.
We must be like those women healed. We must see ourselves as the Canaanite woman or the Samaritan leper who would be outside the covenants of promise and without God in the world except by the Lord’s mercy. We must see ourselves as the woman with the issue of blood, our life flowing out of us because of sin unless the Lord heals us -- utter dependence, complete reliance on his ability and trust in his willingness to save us. And Jesus says he will save us if we have faith.
Our own faith
So the question we must ask ourselves as sisters in Christ is, “Do I have
this utter dependence on God and complete reliance on the saving work of
Christ?” We live in societies that aren’t conducive to developing faith.
In Western countries, we have insurance to cover our health, among other
things. We don’t generally worry about where our next meal is coming from or
where we’ll sleep tonight. And for many illnesses, we can take a pill and
get better.
While these are nice things to have, they don’t teach us to rely on God. They might even take the place of trust in God. Some of our sisters in other parts of the world don’t have these conveniences and have shown great faith in their hardship. We hear, for example, of our Sis. Natasha who, at age 15, was left without food or money to care for three younger children. Yet she is “full of the Bible and preaches a lot to her friends.” A recent update told us she has been working, is happy and “very spiritual."
Increasing our faith
I expect that most of us don’t feel we have great faith. We probably feel
like the man who said, “Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief”
(Mark 9:24). Assuming we feel this way, how may this small amount of faith
be increased? How did men and women of the Bible grow in faith? They weren’t
born giants of faith. Through small amounts of trust in God, they learned
from their experiences with Him that God is trustworthy and that “he will
not suffer you to be tempted (or tried) above that ye are able” (I Cor.
10:13).
Think of David, who said, “The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will delver me out of the hand of this Philistine” (I Sam. 17:37). We must think to ourselves, “God did it in the past, I have faith he’ll do it now.” We must think of times in our lives when we trusted God, times when we really put our faith in Him, hard as it might have been, and we knew it. We learned at those times that God is faithful; He can be trusted. And we can grow by thinking on these experiences and building on them, giving us strength for each new trial or temptation we face.
It seems to me that perhaps our ultimate act of faith is truly believing that the Lord will save us, personally; that at the judgment, you and I personally will be given an entrance into His kingdom. We see another sister or brother and think, “Oh, I know he or she is going to be in the Kingdom,” but we’re not so sure about ourselves. While we must not presume upon God’s mercy, isn’t this a lack of faith?
Bro. Colin Attridge in his book, The Fruit of the Spirit, calls this our “quantum leap of faith.” What a good way to express it! The distance between what we know we are by nature and what we hope to be eternally is vast. It requires a mighty big leap. We go from here to there only by faith in the son of God.
So, sisters, let’s take the examples we have, biblical and otherwise, and learn from them. Let’s be like the humble, often timid, but faithful outcasts of Israel who came to Christ to be healed, convinced that he alone could make them whole; that he alone could save them. Let’s go on to grow in faith, producing fruit – works of faith. Then, when our Lord returns, he will find faith. And he will say, “O woman, great is thy faith…Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole.”
Connie Stiles, at the 2003 Florida Bible School Sister’s Tea