There are some extraordinary ideas about faith floating around in the world—so bizarre in fact that we need to clarify what we are discussing. Some believe that just having faith entitles one to blessings and prosperity. Others believe that faith in oneself is all that’s needed in life. And still others feel that faith, in and of itself, is a cosmic force that breeds superhuman, super-spiritual, invincible people.
It is none of that. Having faith does not mean believing what you know isn’t true or believing something for which there is no evidence. The Bible is a big book all about faith and all about the evidence that makes faith so vital, so important, and so astounding.
According to the book of Hebrews, “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence [or realization/confidence] of things not seen” (11:1), and yet the Bible explains faith in detail, unlike anything we have ever read.
“By faith,” the Bible says, “we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” (Heb. 11:3). Far more than a mere statement, though, this faith Scripture is corroborated by a list of examples in the same book:
“By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks” (v. 4).
And, “By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, ‘and was not found, because God had taken him’, for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God” (v. 5).
And verse 6 tells why Enoch pleased God. “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Throughout Hebrews chapter 11, the evidence is overwhelming, stating over and over that, through faith, people accomplished the miraculous.
Faith’s Roll of Honor
Noah, who moved with godly fear in preparing the ark; Abraham, who was called by God to go to a place he had no knowledge of, and further offered his own son, Isaac, as a sacrifice to God, knowing that God would protect Isaac; Sarah, who conceived after she was unable to do so; Joseph, who made mention of the children of Israel departing from Egypt and gave instructions concerning his bones; and Moses, who refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ as greater riches than the treasure of Egypt.
You see, by faith, Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them. And “by faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians, attempting to do so, were drowned” (vv. 27—29).
Hebrews 11 is considered a roll of honor, listing heroes and heroines of faith, these people are remembered not for valor or kindness, but for their complete reliance upon God.
Faith is a perfectly ordinary thing that makes us outstanding in the eyes of God. By faith it is possible to please God, and faith is possible to everybody.
The elementary fact is that faith is power through God, His Word, and His faithfulness. Faith is “built-in.” By that I mean we are born believers. If you think you have no faith, try not believing in, anything or anybody—your wife, husband, doctor, bank, boss, baker, or chef. We put our lives into the hands of surgeons and trust train engineers, cabbies, and pilots without thinking of faith, but that’s exactly what it is.
Faith—A Part of Life
Stop using this faculty of faith and you would never get out of bed in the morning or step outside. You would fancy the sky might fall down. In this world a million cobra troubles are coiled to strike, but we carry on, usually quite regardless and confident. The Bible says, “God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith” (Rom. 12:3b KJV). Christ said, “Only believe” (Mark 5:36), because we can.
Faith is a kind of immune system filtering out fears that otherwise would paralyze all activity. When it fails we develop all kinds of phobias and compulsions. Jesus said not to have phobia but faith.
Putting Faith to Work
During the years of our tent crusades in Africa, my music minister, Adam Mtsweni, and I were looking for a new platform organ and went from shop to shop in the city of Johannesburg. It was noon, and there was one more shop to visit. On arrival I saw a salesman hanging around during the lunch break, and I thought he had hardly noticed us. My colleague and I went from instrument to instrument, but suddenly that lone salesman stood in front of me. His eyes were wide open and his face was as white as a sheet. “Sir,” he stammered, “I can see Jesus in your eyes.” I was dumbfounded. How can this be? I thought, A total stranger says he can see Jesus in my eyes? We had something like a revival in the music shop, and when I left, walking to the car, I said, “Lord, I will never understand how something like this is possible.” Then the Holy Spirit spoke to me: “No problem! Through faith, Jesus lives in your heart, and sometimes He likes to look out of the windows!” What a wonderful truth. In John 14:23, Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”
Furthermore, we read in Luke that while Jesus was speaking to a crowd, “someone came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, ‘Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the Teacher.”’
But when Jesus heard it, He answered him, saying, “Do not be afraid; only believe, and she will be made well.” When He came into the house, He permitted no one to go in except Peter, James, and John, and the father and mother of the girl. Now all wept and mourned for her; but He said, “Do not weep; she is not dead, but sleeping.” And they rediculed Him, knowing that she was dead.
But He put them all outside, took her by the hand and called, saying, “Little girl, arise.” Then her spirit returned, and she arose immediately. And He commanded that she be given something to eat. (8:49-55)
On the surface you might conclude that it takes a lot of faith to believe that Jesus could, or would, cure your daughter of an illness, let alone raise her from the dead. But it takes no more or no less faith in God to do that than to give us our daily supply of food or shelter. We serve a big God, and He is able to do whatever we ask of Him—not because we have faith enough, but because we have faith, period.
Being the Good Father
Jesus told of God’s goodness and willingness to help all of us. In Luke, chapter 11, He told a parable about the “good father”:
If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him! (vv. 11—13)
Nevertheless, people confuse faith with virtue. Faith is there. Faith is just faith. Virtue is developed. Faith doesn’t come as does learning the piano grade by grade. People talk about “big believers,” as if believing came in sizes like suit jackets. We can have faith even when we know we are not very good. Nonbelievers can have faith, otherwise they could never be brought to the realization that Jesus Christ is Lord.
All Can Believe
That very same Lord of lords taught us that all can believe in Him. He said so in John 14:1. But Scripture also says something extraordinary about faith. “He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God” (1 Peter 1:20—21). Through Christ alone, nonbelievers can believe!
But believe in what? Some believe in UFOs, that “mother earth” is alive, or that the dead really communicate with us. Surveys show that practically everybody believes in some sort of God, somewhere.
Believing tests us. The kind of God we believe in is a window into our soul. We are what we believe and in what we have faith. By way of illustration, Jesus talks about His equality with God in John 5:23—24 and the difference between a person who believes in Him and one who doesn’t. “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him,” Jesus explained. “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.”
In other words, he who believes in Christ begins a new spiritual life—a quality relationship with God. We obtain a fullness of spiritual vitality that we lacked before believing in and having faith in God. Belief in Jesus Christ as God gives us life without end in the full presence of God Himself. This in and of itself constitutes a tremendous incentive to vigorously spread the gospel to those who still do not know its power and compassion.
The Needed Response
Belief, though, is much more than just knowledge of Christ. There must be a response to that belief system. Do we do what we believe? If we believe in a seed, we plant it and patiently wait for it to grow. A man who owns a plane but won’t risk flying it is contrary to the pilot’s character. And believing in God without expectation that He will do something is contrary to the entire Bible’s message.
James, the half brother of Jesus, made some hard-hitting remarks about believing and faith in his epistle to Jewish believers who were struggling in their own faith. He saw them as succumbing to impatience, bitterness, materialism, disunity, and spiritual apathy. As a resident of Jerusalem and an early church leader, James had frequent contact with Jewish Christians and felt a responsibility to exhort and encourage them in their struggles of faith. To strengthen the early believers, James taught them that faith proves itself by works:
What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:14-17)
James gave us the blueprint of what faith is and what it does. Its characteristics are unmistakable. Faith obeys the word of God, removes discrimination from our hearts, proves itself by works, controls the tongue, generates wisdom, exalts humility, and overwhelmingly produces a deep dependence on God.
In conjunction, faith triumphs when we pray for the afflicted and even when we confront the errors of our brother. “Brethren,” James wrote, “if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins” (5:19-20).
How to View God
There is yet another aspect of faith that is vital to our destiny as children of the Most High God. Faith, you see, is the portal by which we view and perceive God. He is a Spirit. Mortal eyes are too weak to discern “the invisible God,” “the King eternal, immortal” (Col. 1:15; 1 Tim. 1:17). We have to seek Him where He is found. “He who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6).
Some fail short of the fullness of belief in God because they trust their own senses more than Scripture. Wanting a God they can see has led many people to serious spiritual errors in judgment and has called their very faith into account. Thomas, one of the twelve disciples, was just such a person.
After the resurrection of Jesus, the countryside was ablaze with an uneasy excitement. One night, when the disciples, except Thomas, were gathered together in one place, Jesus appeared to them, blessed them, breathed the Holy Spirit on them, and said, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:23).
But when Thomas returned, the other disciples told him what had happened. He didn’t believe them. “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails,” he said, “and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). A scant eight days later, the disciples were again gathered, but this time Thomas was with them. Jesus again appeared. He looked at Thomas and said, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”
Thomas must have felt terrible as he cried out to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” But Jesus, looking at Thomas, said, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:26—29).
Not seeing is no reason for not believing. Nobody sees radiation. We wait for its effects. Nobody sees God, but millions find the effects of Him in their lives. Things happen that can only be from Him. Even one prayer answered, one healing, one miracle, one deliverance from addiction is evidence of Him.
But it isn’t just one. Millions are healed, millions are delivered, millions of prayers are answered, and millions have had experiences that can only be attributed to Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.
When I step on a platform in Africa or India or anywhere else, past biblical miracles collide with God’s present-day mercy and grace. Without any touch of mine the blind begin to see, the deaf heat
the dumb speak, the crippled walk, and those driven to madness by clinging spirits of evil are released. The greatest effect is deliverance from sin and guilt and the transformation of people’s attitudes and personalities.
The Gospel of John, chapter 20, verses 30 and 31, says: “Truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these [signs] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.”
In other words, believing is not beyond us. Some think of faith in the same way they view money—a good thing if you have some. But faith is not what you have; it is what you do. Just as we can see, hear, feel, taste, or smell, we can believe and act on that belief. And that act of faith is our true spiritual strength. It is our sixth sense or faculty—spiritual eyesight, an ear to hear, a hand to take God’s blessing, and the courage to hold on to God’s healing touch. But faith is not something we acquire in abundance, immediately upon recognizing and committing our lives to God.
When we encounter Jesus Christ for the first time, we are like children who find out for themselves who He was and is. We go from little or no faith in Him as the Son of God to fully understanding who He was and is and why He came to us as a simple child born in a manger.
The incident of Christ healing the blind man in John 9 shows how our faith can go from little to great—sometimes in a remarkably short period of time: Jesus came upon a blind man, and told His disciples, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (v. 5). He then spat on the ground and made clay with His saliva, and then anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (v. 7). The blind man went and washed there and came back seeing. Later he learned that it was Jesus who had performed this miracle. When the man’s neighbors asked how it could be that he could see he said, “A Man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed, and I received sight” (v. 11). That is where it stood—Jesus, a man.
However, faith began to arise. First, some of the Pharisees asked, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” There was a division among them, so they asked the man who was healed who Jesus was, and he said, “He is a prophet” (v. 17).
The Pharisees didn’t believe that this man was blind from birth, so they sent for his parents. His parents said, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know. He is of age; ask him. He will speak for himself” (vv. 20—21). The leading Jews had agreed to excommunicate from the synagogue anybody who said that Jesus was the Christ; so faced with such a fact as a man born blind made to see again, they questioned the man further. “Give God the glory!” they said. “We know that this Man is a sinner” (v. 24).
Developing Faith
The man then said, “Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see” (v. 25). Then the man, who was arguing with the Pharisees about his healing, said, “If this Man were not from God, He could do nothing” (v. 33). This man’s faith was developing, and he believed Christ was not a sinner but from God. For this he suffered persecution and was blamed as being a disciple of Jesus.
Jesus then found the man. The authorities had thrown him out of the temple—typical of a world that rejects those who testify to the goodness of God. He had one important question to ask the man. It wasn’t whether he felt grateful or if he had started to work. He asked, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” The man did not know what Jesus meant and said, “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?” (vv. 35-36).
He had enough faith in Jesus to feel his way to the pool of Siloam when he was blind because Jesus told him to go. That brought him physical sight. But another kind of faith could bring him far greater illumination. His faith had not reached that point. Then Jesus said, “You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you.” The man looked at Christ, and his faith exploded. He had no problem accepting Christ’s declaration. He said, “Lord, I believe!” Then, “He worshiped him” (vv. 37-38). Faith was complete.
The account of the woman of Samaria in the Gospel of John, chapter 4, is another powerful lesson from the history of faith. It is an illustration of the fact that a sinner can take a profound leap of faith into the heights of the supernatural.
A nameless woman came to draw water from a well at the same time Jesus was resting there from a hot, long walk. He asked her for a drink of water, which astonished her. She thought He was an odd sort of Jew to be so free, breaking all Jewish tradition by speaking to a Samaritan.
“How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” (vv. 9-14)
At that point she decided to humor Him, so she just said, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” She certainly expected nothing of the kind. Jesus simply said, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” She put on an air of innocence and said she had no husband. Jesus then shattered her with a recitation of her sullied life and her Hollywood-like record of husbands. The woman stared at Him, shocked, and said, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.” She had advanced in her perception and in her faith.
The woman then said something that represented four hundred years of argument about where to worship: “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.” Jesus then shook her ideas about worship. Worship had nothing to do with place or time. Worship was anywhere, everywhere, and always.
Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. (vv. 21-24).
The people God wanted were those whose worship was not confined to a local spot or fixed schedule. She felt lost now in such theological depth, so she tried to edge around it. She said such matters would be settled when the Messiah came.
The woman was getting closer, and then Jesus said, “I who speak to you am He.” Her faith again soared. She looked at this man who saw her past like a filmed record and swept her out of her depth with His profound teaching. Excited, she rushed into the town telling everybody about Jesus. “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did.” She then asked of the town’s people, “Could this be the Christ?” Many men then went back to the well to see who this man was that had so affected her. They, too, fell under His divine spell and invited Him to stay in the town. For two days He was among them, and many more believed because of His own word. Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”
The Development of Faith
In each of these incidents, the development of faith is swift and always ends with commitment to a relationship with Jesus Christ. Becoming a believer in God may not be an easy transition, but it is a gap that can be leaped as fast as light. One minute we are far from God, and the next we are bound to Him eternally through faith. In an instant we become as His disciples had become—”They are Yours. . . . and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. . . . and none of them is lost” (John 17:9-12).
A Different Kind of Faith
Faith in Christ is different from any other kind of faith. In the New Testament, the word used means to believe “into” Christ (Greek, eis). That word suggests movement. The ordinary word for “in” (Greek, en) describes a set position, but the Greek word used for faith in Christ means moving close to Him in trustful love. It is an embrace. I
This kind of loving touch between man and his Maker comes only through Christ. No one in the Old Testament days could think of such a thing. God was Spirit, another kind of Being, holy and too awesome to be approached except with fear and trembling. Yet one inspired book in the Old Testament Scriptures touches the heart of a new experience— the Song of Solomon, a lyric of love that gathers up all its words of supreme love in one phrase, “I am my beloved’s, I And my beloved is mine” (6:3).
The Great Beloved One
When Jesus came, the Song of Solomon was fulfilled. He is the great beloved One. The dry, loveless religious world of the Jews had no spiritual experience that corresponded to the Song of Solomon. Any passionate embrace between heaven and earth was unknown until Jesus came. He is the divine Lover, and we are those He came to love.
A woman emptied a flask of priceless ointment upon the feet of Christ in holy adoration (John 12:1—8); a street-girl washed His feet with the water of her eyes, toweled them with her hair, and anointed them with oil and in love (Luke 7:37—47); a hard-hearted tax collector went wild with joy and wanted to give his money away (Luke 19:1—10); and Jerusalem had never seen anything like that—this monumental kind of adoring wonder that had all but changed the hearts of an entire nation.
And why not? Jesus began it Himself, as we read in John 13:1-12. At the Last Supper, when Jesus knew that the hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. Jesus rose from the supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel, and girded Himself.
The Coming Dawn
That was the Lord God whom everyone could fling his or her arms around. His mother, Mary, did and so did Mary Magdalene, the former prostitute who was saved by the loving touch of the Master (Matt. 27:56-61).
In the Old Testament, revelation came to people about God, but it seemed to be only to rare individuals, such as Abraham, Jacob, and the prophets. The masses moved very slowly—and often moved backward. God used various circumstances and methods to help them to have faith. But the coming of Jesus swept the world. Somehow, Calvary does what the awesome manifestations of Sinai couldn’t do. Jesus is the great Creator of faith. Looking back over the long, cheerless world history of uncertainty and doubt, we can see when it changed. It came with the gospel. It awakened sleeping trust The dawn had come.
By Reinhard Bonnke
