faith is THE substance

Faith has been in the forefront of my thoughts lately. Conversations with friends, articles, Bible passages have all turned my attention to this great subject.

What is faith?

Faith is one of the first things we learn as babies or children. Trial and error. You learn that if you get up from the ground you will fall down if you do not use balance. Up and down you try and try again. Then comes the day when you let go of your mommy's hand and take your first steps towards your daddy. Faith. Granted a baby has no idea that it is being subjected to the laws of gravity or faith. A baby simply reaps and sows or acts and reacts, always taking in new information and learning from the world around it and applying it to it's personal walk.

John 1:10
He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

Not surprisingly, it seems that God knew that man would be a stubborn being. A little baby falls down over and over again before it learns to use it's legs, and God put in place physical laws so that we could understand spiritual laws.

The world would not have you believe in God. How could there be a God? You may as well believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. "Do not worry," they tell us, "we will find a different explanation for all of these questions. We just know that there can't be a God." And the little atoms, molecules, electrons, thoughts, emotions, and every part of their being start working together to tackle the universe. Defiance.

Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Romans 1:20
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

People have created a deep science and have produced an explicandum of the world around us. Micro and macro discoveries enlighten us daily to a world far beyond our ordinary assumptions and teach us of the intricate workings of life. We can look into the night sky and watch satellites perusing through space. We keep watching and see a shooting star. We spot a plane as it blinks it's signals on it's way to some destination. We can explain all of these things.
Yet, in spite of all of this, science has not grasped the human brain in it's entirety, the mind.... the grey matter. They can tell us from which parts of the brain we have certain emotions like pain or pleasure.  ....but what exactly is a thought? What does it look like? Or must it look like anything? Studies and research are en route to find the answers. Stimulating neuron after neuron, jotting down incoming information in organized statistics as they attach wires to heads, hearts and our fleshly parts and ask, "How do you feel?", "What did you think?", "Do you understand this?" and so-on.
All of this yet there are still no confident conclusions to explain the complexity of this single aspect of life: the grey matter where the physical world melds with the spiritual world.

The universe carries on: Scientists to their research, civilians to their work ...and those of us who believe in Jesus Christ continue to live by faith as we operate on things not seen. Operating on simple things like faith.

Vanity is to our soul as gravity is to our body... it eventually humbles us. God, knowing how conceited, foolish and stubborn mankind would be, created a force that would always bring man back to his own useless, empty, nothingness. Why did God do this? Mr. Peterson, one of the men in my church, ventured through the book of Ecclesiastes and I like how he summed it up: "God has subjected man to vanity that all might seek him."
We can build aircraft and fly in the clouds because we understand gravity and respect it and work with it. Once we understand God's plan for the universe and how He works through the Body of Christ in the church today we can be effective humans. Our life, our work, our passions are not in vain when we have the full knowledge of the kingdom of God. And it's not because of our own goodness or strength but because He can work through us.

Ephesians 2:8-10
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.


Even more, it is His faith that we have. 
I can be 100% sure of creation, sure of my salvation, sure of the rapture of the church the body of Christ... because the Bible tells me so, and the Bible is the Word of God, ...it IS God... (John 1:1) perfect and preserved through and for every generation.

Gal. 2:20 
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

And yet, even more that this, I have a substance in my being. One that no sort of scientific scope can detect. It is faith. Not just the faith I have where if I cross a bridge it will hold, or that if I slide my credit card my money will 'come forth', or that if I jump in the air gravity will surely bring me down.
No, this is not my faith, but the faith of my Father.... where when I look at the night sky and witness the dancing of Northern Lights or see a sunset that has caught the clouds on fire... I know that He is the Author of this universe and of the faith in my spirit. His faith is the substance. Even though the creation is enough to confirm that there is a God, the faith of the saints is yet more evidence.

Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.