"What Is Faith?"

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

"What is faith?" It's important, because only those who have faith won't "perish" at last, says John 3:16. Millions accept the little boy's definition, "Faith is believin' what you know ain't true." Church members who believe that definition are lukewarm.

A popular definition of faith is: "faith equals trust. You trust God and that's faith!" But what they don't notice is that "trust" always involves an egocentric motivation. As long as we serve God with a self-centered motivation we are either "under the law" (Rom 6:14) or at best lukewarm. The Yemen al Qaeda suicide bombers who blew up the USS Cole [October 12, 2000] "trusted Allah" that in their suicide they would go to Paradise; is that "faith"? So, many Christians "trust God" like we trust our insurance company, or trust the police, or trust our doctors--always with an egocentric motivation. And lukewarmness is the natural result.
Two New Testament words for "trust" are peitho and elpizo, neither of which is the word for faith (believing). The New Testament word "to believe" is pisteuo, an entirely different idea. Jesus Himself must define "faith" for us: "God so [1] loved the world [with agape] that [2] He gave His only begotten Son, that [3] whosoever believeth [the verb for faith] in Him should [4] not perish, but [5] have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

It's simple and it's clear: genuine faith is a heart-melting appreciation of God's loving and His giving! It includes trust, yes; but it precedes trust. It depends on understanding what it cost God to give His Son, and what it cost Him to sacrifice Himself for us. And that is precisely what Satan doesn't want the world to understand! Thus he has invented the false doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul which requires that Christ did not truly die on His cross; it short circuits agape and obscures the cross like clouds enveloping snow-clad Kilimanjaro. If you can't SEE agape, then your so-called faith is nothing more than like trusting your bank-- no melting of the heart involved. The natural result: Laodicea's lukewarmness--that's what sickens Christ.

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: October 19, 2000.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.

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