DEVOTION/God gives us faith
Signs of faith
What do you have faith in? Do you have faith that your car won’t break down? Do you trust that there will still be money in your bank account when you retire? Faith is a word that means believing and trusting in something or someone. If your best friend told you to stand backwards in front of him, and then told you to let yourself fall backward, would you trust him to catch you?
The Bible is filled with stories about people who had faith and trusted God. Noah took 120 years to build an ark because God told him there would be a flood. Abraham packed up his entire family and traveled hundreds of miles to a strange land he had never seen before. David stood a few feet from a nine foot giant. He believed God would give him the victory. Elijah believed God would answer his prayer and burn up his sacrifice. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were confident God would find a way to save them from the fiery furnace. The centurion knew Jesus could heal his servant. He said to Jesus, No need to come to my house. Just stand here and say the words, and I know my servant will be healed.
Hoping or believing?
These are wonderful examples of faith. In faith our hope becomes real. We can only hope our car won’t break down or that our savings will be there when we need it. Noah, David and Abraham trusted in their heart that God’s promises would be fulfilled. Theirs was not simply hope, but assurance that God’s Word would stand.
The writer to the Hebrews tells us very simply what faith is: Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see (Hebrews 11:1). In other words, faith is trusting God with our heart when we can’t see proof with our eyes.
Even though we haven’t seen Jesus with our eyes, we believe he is our Savior. That’s faith. Believing God created the world by telling it to happen is faith. Believing that heaven is a place we will one day enjoy is faith. Believing that Jesus will come again is faith. We trust that God will do what he has told us in his Word. We believe that God tells the truth. We put our faith in the words of Jesus, God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).
by Reynold R. Kremer