We live in a society, a world, which has little faith in God. When we say God most people take their relationship with Him very causal. As if He and what He said have no relevance in their personal life. Their view point is God is in the clouds, I’m here on earth struggling, I will call Him when I need Him. Is this the kind of relationship God wants to have with us? If this is our concept of God no wonder why Jesus said 2000 years ago and is still today “this is a faithless generation”. But we have to be honest about our thought processes, attitudes, stumbling blocks, and concepts about God; otherwise we are just spinning our wheels and getting no where.
If you ask the majority of people do they believe in God their answer would be yes! If you ask people if they have faith in God they would most likely say yes! But if you ask what does faith means, then the break down begin. Some may say faith means believe, others may say love, and others may say go to church, or pray. This reminds me when Jesus asked His disciples Matthew 16:13-14 “……Who do people say that I the Son of man am? And they said, some say that you art John the Baptist: some, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” Once again we are NOT sure.
According to dictionary.com Faith means to have confidence or trust in a person or a thing and to have strong or unshakable belief in something. Now take that definition and apply it to God….so faith means to have confidence in God and Trust in God and have a strong or unshakable belief in God.
According to dictionary.com faith for Christians mean trust in God (who God is) and in His actions (what God has done) and promises (what God has spoken); both the good and the bad. This is called Christianity NOT religion because to trust and have confidence in God is an ongoing lifestyle which is shown in your day to day living. You do not have trust in God on Sunday and Wednesday but every other day you are free to live as you choose. That mean the heart (the center of your life) truly do not trust God but only giving a show for maybe your parents, spouse, friends, and whomever.
So let’s define the word Trust, it means the reliance on the integrity, strength, ability and surety of God. Faith in God means Trusting God’s integrity (what He said and what He has done is true) in other words true then and true now; relying on God’s strength (2
In Corinthians 12:9 “And The Lord said unto Paul, My grace is enough for you: for my strength is made perfect in weakness….Paul goes on to say ….” most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities (weakness), that the power of Christ (His strength) may rest upon me (stay and remain with)”. Paul trusted in God’s strength. Faith in God means to trust in His ability to heal, restore, to deliver, to guide, to do the impossible.
Proverbs 3:5-8
Trust (have Faith) in the LORD with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes: fear (greatly respect) the LORD, and depart from evil (repent).
It shall be health to your navel (belly button – the central point or middle of your life), and marrow (the inner most or essential part for strength, survival, and growth) to your bones.
Trust is something we have to learn and unfortunately we learn about Trust through experiences. If we have any bad experiences with Trust dealing and interacting with people then naturally we apply mankind’s shortcomings to God; as if He will be the same way. That’s the wrong concept of God. We have it backwards, we have imputed our sinful character upon God; but the Bible teaches that God’s desire is to impute His righteous, holy, perfect character upon us but none of this can happen without trusting Him; trusting who He is (God), trusting His actions and ways, and trusting His word despite what the nay-Sayers says.
