What is Faith?

Lynda MacDonald, Nova Scotia

  Do we really understand the Biblical concept of Faith? In Dr. Hugh Ross’s book "The Genesis Question" the Hebrew word for faith, 'emûna, means a strongly held conviction that something or someone is certainly existing, firmly established, constant, and dependable. In the Bible every instance of faith suggests the acting upon of some established truth. A dictionary I researched gave this definition of faith, “a steadfastness; unmoveable trust”. I like that!

I want to share with you, in this article, a Biblical look at faith.

Exodus 14 is the wonderful story of the parting of the Red Sea. In verses 15 and 16 it reads, “Adonai asked Moshe “why are you crying to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward! Lift your staff, reach out with your hand over the sea and divide it in two. The people of Israel will advance into the sea on dry ground.” Verse 21 “Moshe reached his hand out over the sea, and Adonai caused the sea to go back before a strong east wind all night. Then the people of Israel went into the sea on the dry ground with the water walled up for them on their right and on their left.”

The story focuses around the Egyptian army coming behind the Children of Israel to kill them and the Red Sea before them to swallow them up. What a helpless state to be in, yet- not a hopeless one!

Moshe in verse 13 answers the peoples’ complaining with this response “ Stop being so fearful! Remain steady and you will see how Adonai is going to save you. He will do it today –today you have seen the Egyptians, but you will never see them again!”

In Hebrew, the word for “Egypt” is Mitzrayim and it means “ boundaries and limitations”. The people of Israel, while in Egypt lived with boundaries and limitations from the oppressors. Facing the Red Sea, they still were ensnared by Mitzreyim. God wanted to bring them to a place of liberty and freedom in Him. He led them to a place where a decision had to be made to both trust Him steadfastly and gain freedom or to hold to what they knew was familiar but brought oppression and slavery. The choice was theirs – slavery or freedom!

The choice was hard. The only hope was “faith” in Adonai. Had He always been true and faithful? Had He always been trustworthy?

They stepped out into the unknown and freedom was their reward. “Faith” was the catalyst that made it happen.

As believers today, we face our Egypt times –places where we are in slavery and freedom is out of reach. The same God that brought the Israelites into freedom is the same God who brings us into freedom in 2005.

 Faith is the foundation of eternal life. We accept salvation by faith. We believe that God loves us unconditionally, by faith.

We believe that He will work in us on our behalf, by faith. Nothing happens in our relationship with Almighty God without faith.

In my ministry, I daily hear that the Old Testament is passé. That it is boring reading and not relevant for today. I love to share this comparison-

Let’s say that I have just shared with you the most exciting story from the latest bestseller book. You ask if I would lend it to you so that you could get a total understanding of the story- firsthand.

I take that best seller and tear out 2/3 of the pages and hand it to you. Imagine the look you would give me. The verbal response would be “Why did you do that? Now I will not know the beginning, the background or even what the characters are all about. The end is of no value without the meat of the story and how it began. You have ruined the book!”

Well folks, without the Old Testament, we have missed the whole point of “The Book”.

In the 39 sections (Books) prior to Matthew, God reveals Himself, commits Himself and proves Himself.

He “instructs” (the true meaning of Torah) us as to how and why we should trust Him through those wonderful 39 books. He chooses to show us through his faithful love, covenants and leadership with the Jewish People. In the remaining 26, we, as Gentiles, learn where we fit in to this exciting family with God as our Father and Yeshua as our Redeemer.

All this happens because God created a word “faith”. We, with steadfastness and unmoveable trust, reach out and take His hand. We walk with Him; we serve Him; we love Him and we obey Him.

No wonder Sha’ul (Paul) could say, “for me life is Messiah and to die is gain”. Philippians 1:21 Sha’ul learned how to walk with faith. He walked with steadfastness and unmoveable trust.

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