Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Faith: It's not what you think it is.



As I got the kids off to school and thought about what I would do this morning, I literally had to choose how I was going to spend my time. I spent way too much time on facebook yesterday morning, and that got me off to a not-so-great start for my day. I chose to study my bible instead.

I started off going where I like to go every day (that I remember anyways)...Daily Light for the Daily Path. The entry I read this morning is here.  It started off with Luke 10:19, which states, "Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you." Next, it moved on to another scripture that related to it (as it always does), and somehow or another I was on my way to discovering what faith really is.

I ended up at discoverybible.com and read their latest study on "pistis", or faith. To quote,

The root of 4102/pístis (“faith”) is  3982/peíthō which means “to persuade or be persuaded”. This points to the core-meaning of faith in the Bible: “the Lord’s inworked (inbirthed) persuasion” (G. Archer).

What really got me, was the fact that faith wasn't the same thing as belief. Faith is God convincing you of XYZ. Faith is a total gift from God because it does not originate from us. It originates from God and when He draws you, He convinces you that He's real and that you want to respond by believing Him. Faith is God's work alone. It's only given to us as a gift--a very precious, life-changing, I-didn't-do-anything-to-deserve-this, but-oh-how-precious-it-is kind of gift. If God didn't give me this faith-gift, I could not be saved.

Another point made in this word study was that faith was not only God's work, and a grace-gift from God, but also an experience and revelation from Him as to what will please him. As I pondered this,
it made the verse "We walk by faith, not by sight" make so much more sense to me. If I were to reword this, I would put it this way: "We walk by what God has convinced us of what pleases Him, not by what we can see or experience through our five senses." (Personal Interpretation Version). :)

Another point: Faith is NOT the same as belief. This is perhaps the biggest revelation I got in studying this. Faith is completely the work of God. Belief happens when we trust God and we do what He has shown us to do. That is what is meant when the Scriptures talk of "walking by faith". If we walk by faith, we are walking by the understanding and revealing of His will for us (yes, even personally), not by what we can see or sense from the outside. Read Hebrews 11 again, with this in mind. It will blow you away. Promise. :)

There is so much more to this than what I have written here, but this is the main point I was trying to get across. And if you want a real world example of faith, you are reading it. This blog was started because I knew this is what God wanted me to do. I only post when He wants me to, when he has something he wants to impart to others. So posts will come as often as He speaks to me (and I have ears to hear...pray that I have ears to hear the "news from the throne" :). It's completely by faith I'm doing this.

Be blessed. :)

Friday, October 17, 2014