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"One day the apostles said to the Lord, 'We need more faith; tell us how to get it." The Bible, Luke chapter 17 verse 3 |
Faith is something that we cannot live without, whether we are believers or unbelievers! A true unbeliever would be forced into checking absolutely everything and life would become impossible. People sometimes have a sickness along these lines and they are truly to be pitied.
The Bible asks, "What is faith?" and then gives the answer, "It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see" (Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1). Does this sound unrealistic? If so, consider some of the ways in which all of us, "believers" and "unbelievers alike," live by faith every day of our lives.
We buy a carton of milk or a can of drink, open it and drink it down without wondering if it has been poisoned or not. If it is properly sealed in the first place, we rightly assume that no one has messed about with it, or added something nasty like sulphuric acid. Of course, if they had, we would soon know and we would not finish the drink, but we would already have swallowed enough to cause major damage. The point is, we have a working faith in the manufacturers and we do not believe that they would deliberately set out to poison us.
When tired, we find a chair and rest our whole weight on it in the firm belief that it will hold us up. We abandon ourselves completely to it without going through all sorts of weight-bearing tests first. If we say that all these tests were done by the manufacturer, then we are simply exercising faith in the manufacturer instead.
We drive many miles to an airport at some unearthly hour, after ordering our tickets over the phone, with perfect faith that they will be waiting for us when we arrive.
When we submit to the surgeon's knife, our faith is really on the line, but we go ahead because we have a working faith in "the system."
"Seeking and feeling" after God is simply taking all of this one step further. We believe that God exists, and that he rewards those who seek him: "So, you see, it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that there is a God and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him" (Hebrews chapter 11 verse 16).
Faith then, is choosing to rely upon God and on what he says, rather than upon our own opinions.
As mentioned above, all of us live our normal everyday lives by faith and life is impossible without it.
Atheists, agnostics, cynics and sceptics have faith that their disbeliefs are correct. God says, "Only fools say in their hearts, 'There is no God'" (Psalm 14 verse 1).
The Evolutionist has faith that God did not create us but that instead, we gradually developed by blind chance over hundreds of millions of years. God says, "From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God. Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn't worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas...." (Romans chapter 1 verses 20 to 22).
The Fanatic has such a strong belief in his cause that he is willing to undergo any suffering, even death itself, in order to further that cause.
You could drink poison believing that it was something harmless but you would still die. Your faith would be of no use whatsoever.
You could leap from a high window under the influence of drugs, with the utmost faith in your ability to fly, but your faith would not hold you up. Your faith would be misplaced.
Faith itself is therefore not enough. It must be faith placed in the right objective. There is only one sane place for our faith and that is in God himself who created us.
Our faith is exercised correctly when we exercise it in "seeking and feeling" after God. We have faith that he exists and that he responds to our searching. Sometimes he seems to play "hide-and-seek" with us. When this happens, we still believe by faith that we will find him because he has said that we will: "If you look for me in earnest, you will find me when you seek me" (Jeremiah chapter 29 verse 13).
Miracles have happened in the past, they happen today, and they will continue to happen in the future. We speak glibly of "the miracle of life" and so it is.
Jesus performed many miracles while here on earth. Surprisingly, he often told the recipient of a miracle that it was because of their own faith that the miracle had happened! Nevertheless, it is obvious in the stories that people came to Jesus because they had great faith in his ability to help them.
Miracles are still a possibility at every moment of every day, especially when we are "seeking and feeling" after God. This certainly adds zest and interest to the search. It also adds frustration too!
God's viewpoint of faith is that we all have it and that we routinely exercise it in our daily lives. He wants us to exercise that faith mainly in "seeking and feeling" after him. When we do, we can expect anything to happen.
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Page updated 11 May 2004