What does it mean to have faith?

Recently, someone ask me: “What are your fundamental beliefs when it comes to faith?” Here was my answer:

A lot of people are confused about what faith actually is.

Some say that faith is a passive, intellectual accent, or acknowledgement of something. While this is indeed a type of faith, it is not the faith that brings about salvation for which the Bible talks about. After all, as the Book of James says, “the demons believe in God and they shutter” (2:19); yet they are not saved.

Some say faith is a matter of what you SAY you believe. But the Bible says "Not everyone who says to me, `Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven.” In other words, not everyone who claims Jesus is claimed BY Jesus.

Their close cousins are those that believe that faith is encapsulated in the very words themselves. They are referred to as the “Word of Faith” movement. Their faith is in the words themselves. They believe that the louder you say the words (like “Jesus!”) the more powerful the Spirit moves.

Others think that faith is just some sort of energy force that we just need to pay $19.95 for, and it will quickly rescue us from all our problems.

But real faith is something else. Real faith, first, involves active trust. Real faith is an active, receiving and trusting belief. This is what the Bible speaks of in terms of salvation. John 1:12 says, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (ESV)

Second, real faith involves active trust in something particular. In other words, real faith has an object of faith. When someone says they have faith, the common sense response should be “Faith in what?” One’s faith is only as good as the object by which it is placed. Something implicit in real faith is that it is also a right faith – that is, the object of their faith is worth trusting in. Conversely, one’s faith is misguided if the object of one’s faith is NOT worth trusting in. For example, if you had a physical condition that required treatment, trusting in the right doctor is critical for your recovery. Trusting in an incompetent doctor will only lead to worse physical problems. Similarly, let’s say you have a spiritual ailment. You need a competent spiritual doctor to help you, not a quack. We need faith (to trust) in the real God to save us.

Third, real faith always involves having reasons for why one believes in this object. Real faith is “trust based on evidence.” Some people think that the opposite of faith is reason. But the opposite of faith is disbelief. Everyone has reasons for their beliefs. Having reasons for one’s belief does not mean their beliefs are correct, but they have them because they have reasons. So if you’re trying to understand someone and where they are at, after asking the first question about faith (“what do you have faith in?”), another helpful question to ask is: “Why do you believe in that?”, or: “What are the reasons you have for believing that?” The answer one gives is their reasons. The reasons help them make the decision to trust in that thing. Those reasons can also be helpful in exploring whether one has trusted in right things.

In summary, real faith can be defined as an active trust based on reasonable assurance in right things. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith similarly: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

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Hope

I was listening to the Albert Mohler program on the radio today (he's president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary). He made a point that really made me think.

He mentioned that according to recent calculations, China, perhaps, has the largest number of Christians in the world. Numbers on the low end are at 70 million, while numbers at the high end tally 130 million.

Even if you take the most conservative numbers, the number of Christians is much, much larger than the number of members in the Communist party in China.

This joins reports from all around the world that show Christianity--serious Christianity, that is--is still dramatically on the rise, even (especially) in places that have heavy persecution.

This is news that despite all the craziness that's going on in the West, God is not done with His church. Though the issues we face here are definitely important, God still marches on.

Another thing Mohler said caught my attention too. He was talking about a recent conversation he had with a Chinese Christian. This Chinese man noted that the Communist government did something very silly that turned out to aid the spreading of the Gospel. As punishment, the government gave Christians dirty, lowly, and unpopular jobs, like garbage collector. These garbage collectors' job was to collect garbage as they went *door to door.*

So the Communist government in China tried to stamp out a missionary religion by sending its adherents door-to-door...nice.

Just goes to show; what men meant for evil, God meant for good.

This gives me hope, folks.

***One thing that gives me pause, though, is that us Christians in the West seem to not have the same strength of nerve as others in more persecuted lands. The most insidious attacks on the church in the West have often come from inside the gates. Also, many of our ranks have been all too happy to lay down our shields and join the wolf pack. Many of us in the West can be and have been bought. We are far too easily mesmerized by bread and circuses. This is not so good....well, perhaps God will use something like what's happening in China to get us to wake up and rejoin the faithful.