#131 – Real Faith

Let’s be honest – – except for “Trusting Jesus” for our salvation we most often use “faith” to speak of “believing God” for something we want for ourselves, here and now. Maybe healing, or a better job, a new car, money to pay bills, a life partner or something else earthly and temporal.

I don’t want to burst any bubbles here (or maybe I do), but that’s not the “faith” of the “Faith Chapter” in the Bible. Those saints came at it from an altogether different angle and we need their kind of faith.

SOME HISTORY
“Faith” is a wonderful topic and has been a buzz word for many Christians over the past 50-years.

The faith and prosperity movement* that began in the late 1960’s gave a particularly deceptive spin to the word by applying it to believing God for earthly things instead of for His purposes. I attended many conferences and meetings on the topic for 10-15 years back then, before I fully saw its vulnerabilities.

I treasure Heb. 11:1 “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (niv), but let’s back up and read the context before we shout hallelujah and claim our Mercedes car or whatever it is we think would make us happy.

FOR CONTEXT
Read Heb. 10:32-39 https://biblia.com/bible/esv/hebrews/10/32-39 and especially note 37-39. READ it and humble yourself before God. THAT is what Biblical faith is about.

We’ll do several posts of this, but first, – – “What do you hope for?”

Ken Stoltzfus
Kidron, Ohio USA
August 26, 2021

*It is offensive to me that famous “faith teachers” fly around the world in their private jets and tell poor people that they just need to have faith and God will bless them too – – and then take their money so they can keep flying their jets and buying their expensive vehicles and living on their exotic estates at home while the poor remain poor. Remember “millstones”?

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