Devotion 6 – Definition of Faith

Heb.11:1;6 – “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen… without faith it is impossible to please Him”

Faith is probably the most important thing in our Christian life, as the scripture clearly says that we cannot please God without faith. How do we define faith?

St. Augustine said, “Faith means believing what you don’t yet see, and the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.”

However, faith is not always a desire for something better, but rather the conviction and an awareness of God’s invisible kingdom. It means we become aware that we are surrounded by an invisible kingdom and that which is seen is not the whole explanation of life, there are realities which cannot be seen or touched, and yet which are as real as anything we can see. In fact, they are more real because they are the explanation of the things which can be seen.

Heb.11:3 – “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”

Faith not only makes the future promises present, it unveils the unseen. No human witnessed the “Days of Creation”; but by faith, we know from Scripture that God brought the world into being through His Word.

Psa.33:6,9 – “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth…For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.”

By faith, we understand and believe that "what is seen" is not self-existent reality. Faith is being certain that there is a spiritual kingdom that exists, and we can never explain the things which are seen till we come to grips with the things that are unseen. And most importantly, we must believe that all the ultimate answers of life lie in that kingdom.

Faith of Noah

Heb.11:7 – “By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.”

Noah may be the greatest example of someone who believed in the unseen. Faith, in this context, is a settled confidence of something as yet unseen but promised by God. When Noah was about 500 years old, God told him to build an ark, because it was going to rain, and there would be so much rain that the earth would be flooded. Up to that point in time, rain had never fallen upon the earth.

Gen.2:4-5 – “This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground…”

Noah believed God and begin building the ark. He was also an evangelist of his time, a preacher of righteousness (2 Pet.2:5). His sermon was his life. Every time the people heard him chop down a tree, cut a plank, pound a nail, store away food for himself and the animals, saw him work on the ark, he was preaching a sermon, he was warning the world of God’s impending judgment. Sadly, he preached for almost a hundred years without anyone believing and had no converts. What faith!

Imagine the mockery, ridicule and how much opposition and discouragement he must have endured while he was building the ark. He was probably nickname ‘Crazy Noah’. How many times he must have been tempted to ask, ‘Is it worthwhile?’ or ‘Am I mistaken after all’?

Faith is believing that God will continue to be God, and that God has our back.  If the scripture contends that apart from faith, it is impossible to please God, then like Noah, faith should be our way of life.

Noah obeyed at all costs and kept on working year after year amid the daily mocking and scorn. He had faith in what he did not see. His faith begat his fear for the Lord and his faith coupled with his fear of the Lord produced his obedience. One of the greatest acts of faith in the history of the world was when Noah picked up an axe and chopped down the first tree to build the ark. If faith was his living principle, than fear of the Lord was the moving power; for the Scripture puts it, “By faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared the ark…” Faith kept him steadfast, but fear moved him. Faith and fear of the Lord together led Noah to do as God commanded him.

Only God can make sense of the call to build an ark in the desert to prepare for an unprecedented worldwide flood. That is the life of faith - it does not make sense without God. But with God, it is utterly reasonable.

“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” — Thomas Aquinas