What Faith Is

Hebrews 11:1: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Since we are talking about faith in this series of lessons, we should define what faith is, and we should get our definition from the Bible itself.

The word substance (Strong’s #5287) can also be translated confidence or assurance as well as substance.  The margin notes in the New King James Reference Edition give another meaning as realization.  I am not sure where they got that, but it is not out of line with its other meanings.

The word evidence (Strong’s #1650) can be translated proof or conviction as well as evidence.

So basically, faith is being sure of something you hope for, being convinced of something you don’t see.

Faith and hope are different.  You can hope that God will heal you, hope that God will get you on your feet financially, hope that someday you’ll have peace, and that’s good.  But it isn’t enough to get the job done.  To see what you hope for become a reality requires going beyond hope to faith.  Faith involves being sure that you have what you have been hoping for.  You are no longer just hoping for it, you know you have it.

Tragically, some people go through their lives “a-hopin’ and a-prayin’” and never get what they hope for.  I doubt you’ll be one of these people by the time we’re done with this series!

If you are playing Monopoly and you have a hotel on Boardwalk, the hotel does not have your name on it.  You can’t look at the board and tell who owns the hotel.  But you have something called a title deed that proves that Boardwalk belongs to you. This is proof that if anyone lands on Boardwalk, they have to pay you two kilobucks and maybe mortgage everything or go bankrupt in so doing.  Faith is like that title deed.  It proves that something belongs to you.  It is evidence that you have something you can’t see.

Faith involves conviction, confidence, certainty.  It is not being 90% sure of something.  It is not being 99% sure of something or 99.9% sure of something.  Faith involves 100% certainty.  Anything else is not really faith.

Faith is being sure of something you can’t see.

One phrase you will have to purge from your vocabulary, at least when it comes to anything to do with God, is “I’ll believe that when I see it!”  By definition, that is not faith! Faith believes it before it sees it because it is convinced of things that are not seen.  If you can already see it, you don’t need faith, you just need sight.

That is why it’s a terrible mistake to look to your body after you’re prayed for, see a little improvement, and say, “I just know I’m healed because I feel a little better.” But what are you going to do if you feel worse instead of better at first?  It’s happened to me before!

I believed I received healing for allergies I had all my life. The next day, I don’t ever remember sneezing so badly! From the look of my body, I was not only still sick, but I seemed to have made a big mistake praying! But it was no mistake, and around noontime, those allergies left and they’ve never come back. I believed I had my healing because I took it by faith the night before.  I had to walk by faith, not by sight, at least until noontime the next day, at which point mere sight would tell me I was healed.

I believed I received healing for my left eye when everything was getting blurry.  The eye doctor said I had an inoperable growth in that eye and I’d just have to accept having blurrier vision.  Rather than accept that, I accepted the fact that Jesus “bore my diseases and carried my pains” (we’ll get to this more in depth in later lessons) and received my healing when I prayed.  My sight got worse for the next week and a half, almost 2 weeks.  But all of a sudden, there was a flash and from that point on, that problem has been gone!  Did I receive my healing when that flash took place?  NO! I received it when I prayed, and it manifested in the natural realm later.  It was like when Jesus cursed the fig tree, and they came back the next day and saw that it had withered.

Thomas said, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” Jesus urged Thomas to stop being unbelieving.  What Thomas said was not faith, or belief; it was unbelief.  It was “I’ll believe it when I see it.”  Faith says, “I believe it before I see it.  I am confident of something I do not see.”

Notice that the Bible does NOT say, “Faith is the conviction of things that don’t exist.”  Seeing it that way will short-circuit any attempt to receive any benefit from God by faith.  To receive something by faith, you must believe that it does exist, even though you can’t see it!

All born-again believers have proved that they can operate faith because they were saved through faith. People talk about being saved by grace, and yes, that’s true, but Ephesians 2:8 actually reads, “For by grace are you saved through faith.” God’s grace alone does not save people; if it did, everyone would be saved because God has shown His grace to everyone.  Salvation is a gift, but like any other gift, it must be received.  It took faith to believe that Jesus rose from the dead and receive Him as your Lord.

Unless you’re a rare exception, you have never seen the Lord Jesus.  I haven’t at this writing, either.  Yet, you believe in Him, even though you have never seen Him. You are sure of something that is not seen.  You are in faith!

You believe you have eternal life. You are not hoping to get eternal life sometime in the future, you believe you have it now. But you can’t see “eternal life”.  It is like the wind – you can’t see it, but you can sure see the effects of it.  So you are sure you have something you cannot see.  You are in faith!

Unless you’re one of a few people, you have never seen heaven. You don’t know what your new accommodations will look like. Yet you believe that Jesus has gone to prepare a place for you, and you have a nice place waiting for you.  There are no ghettos in heaven, so you won’t live in a run-down trailer on Dumpview Road. You’re probably sure of that, too, even though you’ve never seen heaven.  You are convinced of something not seen.  You are in faith about it!

People have little trouble being in faith about these things because they are so widely taught.  But there are other covenant blessings available to the believer, too! We will be talking about some of them in this series.  Once you understand what else belongs to you as a Christian, you can be just as much in faith about that as you are about living with the Lord Jesus forever after you die.

One of the key things you must understand is shown in these verses, which are definitely two of my personal favorites:

Ephesians 1:3:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ

2 Peter 1:3:
As His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue

The vast majority of Christians waste countless hours of prayer time asking God for what is already theirs.  If God says something belongs to you as a Christian, it is wrong to ask God to do something about it.  It is right to receive it by faith and then thank God for it.

Sometimes people think that if they could only get enough people praying, or get people to pray long enough about their situation, God would fix it. Prayer is good and important, but in the vast majority of cases, asking for more prayer is not the answer! Their real need is not to get the whole county praying for them; it is for someone to explain the Word of God to them concerning their situation so that they can receive the answer that already belongs to them as Christians!

For example, say that Billy Bob lives down the street and he is a miserable mess.  So you start praying for Billy Bob. He does not get saved. You still see him kicking his dog and yelling at his wife.  So you figure that you need to get more people to pray for Billy Bob. You get the whole Bible study group praying for Billy Bob. That’s nice, but Billy Bob will still wind up in hell unless someone goes to Billy Bob and explains to him how Jesus has made salvation available to him. Prayer is good, but Billy Bob’s greatest need is for someone to preach the good news to him so that he will know what belongs to him because of what Jesus did. How can you pray and ask God for the new birth if you don’t know it’s available?  Someone has to tell you!

Romans 10:14:
How then shall they call on Him on whom they have not believed?  And how shall they believe in Him in whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?

Romans 10:17:
So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

The sinner does not need Jesus Christ to go back to the cross and re-sacrifice Himself so that he can get saved. He needs to believe in something that is already finished. New life is available to the sinner.  It exists – it just isn’t seen. The sinner must be convinced that something he can’t see is available.  When he gives his heart to Jesus, he is receiving something that has been available all along. God wasn’t making the him wait, he was making God wait.  God had already done all He needed to do about the person’s salvation – it was now up to the person to receive something that was already available.

It is the same way with many other covenant blessings. We usually don’t need more people praying about it as much as we need someone to show us that the Word of God promises whatever it is we need, and it belongs to us.  If you know how to receive such a blessing for yourself, you actually don’t need anyone to pray for you to receive it.  You can just take what you need from God yourself, with His blessing! God is in the business of giving out blessings, not withholding them.

In these sessions, we will see that the other covenant blessings we enjoy as Christians are received in exactly the same way.  We must be convinced of things we don’t see.  We must be convinced that they are there for the taking, then take them.  God is not withholding them from us!  He is waiting for us to reach out in faith – not merely hope – and receive what He has provided for us in Christ!

Study Note:  The word “now” in Hebrews 11:1

Some people have taught that the phrase "Now faith is" proves that faith only works in the present tense. It proves no such thing. Actually, it proves that the person who said it never looked up the word NOW in a Greek concordance before doing an elaborate teaching on it.  Such carelessness gives opponents of faith teaching a legitimate gripe.

There is a Greek word that refers to NOW in a time sense, but this isn't it! The Greek word in Hebrews 11:1 (Strong's #1161) has nothing to do with time. It is the same word used in Galatians 3:16, "NOW to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made".  I hope you would not use this to each that the time God made a promise to Abraham's Seed was NOW! Here are some other verses that use the same word that would be given weird new meanings if you took NOW to mean "not past or future, but this moment":

John 8:5:  "NOW Moses commanded us in the law..."

Hebrews 9:6: "NOW when these things had been thus prepared, the priests always went into the first part of the tabernacle..."

Mark 16:9: "NOW when He rose early on the first day of the week..."

Acts 17:1: "NOW when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia..."

Acts 13:43:  "NOW when the congregation had broken up..."

It is true that there is a “nowishness” to faith – but please don’t use the word NOW in Hebrews 11:1 to try to prove it to anyone!

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