Defining Faith: If I had to do it off the top it would be tough… without this Bible verse. I happen to have fell in love with this one and memorized it quite a while ago. But what does Faith really mean?

Andy Stanley has once again amazed me with this message, and explained faith to me in a way no one ever has before. Typical Andy style, plain and simple, yet delivering a much deeper understanding of the concept at hand.

Starting with what we call Circumstantial Faith… or looking for God in the circumstances of our life, our faith ebbs and flows based on the events of our life. This is very fragile faith. If the foundation of our faith is fragile, our faith can become very inconvenient. Eventually the temptations, pressures, pleasures or events of life will erode it.

Fortunately we can live our lives based on our knowledge of something that happened in history: Jesus came to our world and died for our sins. He was sent to be our forever Savior. We know and can have confidence in our faith against this. It is really not necessary for our faith to be leaning against our circumstances whatsoever.

So here it is… Andy’s definition of Biblical Faith: The confidence that God is who he says he is and will do everything he’s promised to do.

Plain and simple.

From Hebrews Chapter 11… Faith is the substance of things hoped for and not yet seen.

The writer of Hebrews goes on to give some specific examples through Chapter 11. Why did Noah build the ark? Why did Abraham obey and go even though not knowing where he was going? It goes on to list several other examples of people who lived by faith… and then comes to verse 13… All these people were still living by faith when they died; they did not receive the things promised (i.e., during their lifetime here on earth); they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. (with Noah and Abraham being the exceptions). They all acted in faith. Through faith in God.

The bridge between hope and faith is the promise. He loves us with all His heart, and has our best interests in mind… when we see it… and when we don’t. That’s it. That is enough for me 🙂 We’re living on the other side of the promise so why not trust Him?