A look at the definition of faith, and its amazing importance for the Christian life, with illustrations of the Biblical role of faith in the lives of God's people.

1. WHAT IS FAITH? Based on Heb. 11:1
By Pastor Glenn Pease
Jesus was always delighted when he came across faith, for it allowed him to do
wonders. In his hometown he could not do them for the people lacked faith. Faith
was the completing of the circuit that allowed power to flow from Jesus, and when
that was absent he could do no mighty works. In Mark 6:5-6 it says that Jesus did
not do any miracles there and that he was amazed at their lack of faith. Faith can
release the power of Christ, but faithlessness can restrict the power of Christ. The
power to do God’s will and fulfill your purpose in life revolves around this issue of
faith, and so it is vital that we fully understand what faith is.
Heb. 11:1 is the clearest definition of faith in the Bible. It is being sure of what we
hope for and certain of what we do not see. We have heard it often that love is blind,
but here we see that it is faith that is blind. It cannot see, and yet it believes in the
unseen, and it is confident that the unseen is real. In fact, it believes that the unseen
is the most real. Those whose lives revolve around the material and the visible only
are not people of faith. People of faith give a major portion of their lives to the
invisible, and that means to the spiritual aspect of life. God is unseen, and all of the
spiritual teachings and values of Christ are unseen, but these are vital aspect of life
for the person of faith. Verse 3 says that faith starts with the assumption that all
that is visible came from the invisible, and this means that the invisible, or the
reality of God, is the essence of reality. Faith starts with God as the ultimate source
of all that is, and so God is the highest authority, and His Word becomes the
ultimate guide for life.
Having faith is being committed to the belief that the unseen world of God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and all that this God has revealed to
be His will and plan for time and eternity is the ultimate reality. This means that
true biblical faith changes how a person sees all of life and history. Everything is
different for the person of faith when compared with the person who does not have
faith. The person who does not have faith is a materialist, and that person believes
that only what can be seen is real. The spiritual realm of religion is no more than a
myth to those who do not have faith. It is all made up and unreal, and of no more
ultimate value than belief in Mickey Mouse or Superman. 3on-faith says seeing is
believing, and if its not matter it does not matter. In contrast, faith says that the
unseen matters most of all, for it is the source of all matter. Everything in the
believer’s life revolves around faith. Here is just a partial list:
A. Ephesians 2:8-9, We are saved by faith.
B. Rom. 1:17, We live by faith.
C. Rom. 4:13, We receive righteousness by faith.
D. Rom. 5:1, We are justified in Christ by faith
E. Rom. 5:2, We have access to God’s grace by faith.

2. F. 2 Cor. 1:24, We stand firm in our belief by faith.
G. Gal. 3:14, We receive the promise of the Spirit by faith.
H. 1 Tim. 1:4, We do God’s work by faith.
I. Gal. 5:5, We wait for the return of Christ by faith.
Here are some others versions of this definition of faith.
1. "What is faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going
to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we
cannot see it up ahead" (Hebrews 11:1-TLB).
2. The KJV and the 3KJV say, "3ow faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen."
3. The RSV, 3RSV and 3ASB each says, "3ow faith is the assurance of things
hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."
4. Literally the Greek of Hebrews 11:1 says, "3ow faith is the reality of things
being hoped for, the proof of things not being seen."
5. The Amplified Bible translates it this way, "3ow faith is the assurance (the
confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things
[we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what
is not revealed to the senses]."
6. The Message, "The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God,
this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's
our handle on what we can't see."
What was the best thing about the Old Testament? It was people of faith. This is
where the 3.T. focus is, and we need to go back to the old to see that the key then
was also faith. Faith is always in style and never obsolete. It is what links all of
God’s people in all ages, and it alone pleases Him. If you want to go back to the old,
go back to faith, for that is always relevant to the will and plan of God. Ray
Stedman wrote, “Hebrews is one of the three 3ew Testament commentaries on a
single Old Testament verse, "the just shall live by faith." (Hab. 2:4) This is the verse
that struck a fire in the heart of Martin Luther, and began the Protestant
Reformation 450 years ago. This verse opened the eyes of Augustine, and helped
him to become a mighty man of faith, and it is still striking fire in many hearts
today.” This chapter 11 of Hebrews is showing us that the essence of a life that is
pleasing to God is the life of faith. It lists for us many of the Old Testament saints
who displayed this God pleasing faith.
God pleasing faith is a matter of the mental, physical, emotional and volitional
life of the believer. As we look at the examples of faith is this chapter we see that
every aspect of the life of a believer gets involved in faith. Let me give some
illustrations of each.
ME3TAL

3. 1. Verse 3 says it is by faith that we understand that the universe was formed
by God’s command. Faith is a mental commitment to the concept of creation and a
Creator.
2. 3oah had to have a lot of knowledge to build the ark, and so just believing
was not enough without the mental skill to do the job. He believed in the unseen
future that would produce a flood, and he used his knowledge to prepare for it. He
had a mental image of the flood and of the ark that would be needed for salvation.
3. In verse 22 we see that Joseph had intellectual knowledge of the Exodus that
was to come. Faith believes in the future that God reveals and has a mental picture
of it that enables one to make plans accordingly.
4. All belief has to be mental, for you cannot believe anything that has no
mental content. All of the people of faith had mental images of the hope that God
gave of the future bliss awaiting those who lived in obedience to His revealed will.
Paul said in Rom. 10:17 that “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of
God.” You cannot have faith in what God has promised until you hear and grasp it
mentally. Faith has to have an object to trust in, and it cannot trust until it knows
that object. Knowing is a part of faith. In Matt. 13:13 Jesus said the Pharisees
heard Him but they did not understand Him and so they did not have a basis for
faith. You must understand and know who Jesus is and what He has done, and
promised to do, in order to have faith in Him and His Word. Edward Carnell wrote,
"Surely, if faith is not related to knowledge and truth it is meaningless. Faith that is
not grounded in knowledge is but respectable superstition."
D. L. Moody once said that he prayed for years for more faith. He said,
"I prayed for faith as though some day faith would come down and strike me like
lightning. But faith did not seem to come. One day I read the tenth chapter of
Romans, "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." I had up to
this time closed my Bible and prayed for faith. I now opened my Bible and began to
study, and faith has been growing ever since.” Knowledge and understanding are a
vital part of living and growing faith.
This does not mean that we always understand what Jesus is doing and why He is
doing it, for life is full of mysteries that we do not grasp. The point is, we have
knowledge of who Jesus is, and that whatever He is doing, it is wise to follow and
obey. There is always a content in the mind that motivates us to follow even when
we do not understand. Faith has a basic understanding of the truth in Jesus, and
then based on that foundation it follows Jesus when there is no understanding. Faith
goes beyond the mental to the volitional so that it keeps on willing to follow Jesus
even when there is no understanding. Abraham did not know where he was going,
and how in the world, as an old man with an old wife he could have a son, but he did
not let his unknowing stop him from obeying what he knew to be God’s will. Lloyd
C. Douglas has this conversation of the disciples in his book The Big Fisherman:
"Don't forget," admonished Peter, "that we couldn't understand
why he wanted to leave Canaan and come to Capernaum."
"That was different," mumbled Thomas. "He felt that he was

4. urgently needed there." "Maybe he feels that he is now needed
elsewhere," observed Andrew, to which James added, "I don't believe
he cares very much whether we understand him or not."
"You are right, Jimmy," rumbled old Bartholomew. "He's teaching
us to have faith in him."
"But-can't a man have faith-and understanding, too?" argued
Thomas.
"3o!" declared Bartholomew, bluntly. "That's what faith is for, my son!
It's for when we can't understand!"
"That's true!" approved Peter. "When a man understands, he doesn't
need any faith."
"I don't like to be kept in the dark," put in Philip.
"If a man has enough faith," replied Peter, "he can find his way in the dark with
faith as his lamp.”
Because we are finite and not all knowing as God is we are forced to have faith,
but our faith is based on knowing that God knows all, and that it is always the best
thing to obey what He commands. What God sees is unseen to us, but we can see the
character of the God who sees all, and we can trust Him to do what He promises.
The old saying sums it up: “We do not know what the future holds, but we know
who holds the future.” That is our mental aspect of faith even when we cannot
understand or see.
PHYSICAL
1. Abel’s faith motivated him to act, and this is a key aspect of faith all through
the chapter, for faith without works is dead, and dead faith does not please God.
2. Enoch walked with God and revealed his faith by his righteous walk.
3. 3oah, of course, built the ark in faith.
4. Abraham did not know where he was going but he went anyway in faith. The
body has to be involved in faith, for it is with the body that we obey God.
5. Rahab was not a nice person, but she acted in faith and showed hospitality to
the spies, and this physical act of kindness got her into this great faith chapter.
Every person in this chapter did something to demonstrate their faith. It was a
mental commitment of belief in God, but it had to become active and living by some
deed of obedience before it became true faith. Bernard Shaw was right when he
said, “What a man believes may be ascertained not from his creed, but from the
assumptions on which he habitually acts.”
EMOTIO3AL
1. Abraham was looking forward to the heavenly city that God has built for
believers it says in verse 10. Faith is emotional for it is the source of so much joy as
we trust God to fulfill all of His promises to His people. He was a man excited about
having a son, and was even willing to offer that son in sacrifice because he was sure
God would keep His promise and raise his from the dead if necessary. There were
many emotions involved in his faith.

5. 2. Can you imagine the emotions as the parents of Moses hid him, and then
later put him in a basket in the river? Fearful emotions could keep us from obeying
God, but when they are committed to Him they will lead us to do the fearful thing
with joy. Verse 23 says they were not afraid, and that is an aspect of faith. To do the
fearful without fear is faith. Faith unties the knot of fear, and that is why Jesus said
so often, “fear not.” Faith is an emotion that overcomes the emotion of fear. Fear is
real, but faith acts in spite of fear because of its trust in authority. A young boy was
trapped in a burning house and his father stood below the window shouting for him
to jump. The smoke made it impossible for him to see and he cried out to his father,
“But I can’t see you!” His father said “Jump anyway, for I can see you.” He jumped
and his father caught him. His faith in the word of his father overcame the fear of
the unseen. It was a leap of faith, but it was based on his knowledge of his father’s
love and strength. Faith is an emotion that is stronger than fear because it is certain
about what it hopes for.
3. Moses went on to choose suffering with God’s people rather than to enjoy the
pleasures of sin that were fully available to him in Egypt. He chose the unseen
values of Christ rather than the visible pleasures before him. His emotions were
committed, and when this is not the case even the best believer is at risk of falling
into sinful pleasures. Verse 27 says he was also without fear of the king’s anger, for
he saw him who is invisible.
4. Faith cannot help but be emotional for it is a belief and a commitment to that
which produces awe and wonder. Verse 29 says the people passed through the Red
Sea on dry ground, and the Egyptians were drowned when they tried it. That was a
wondrous miracle beyond what we can imagine. Then in verse 30 they saw the great
walls of Jericho fall without any weapon but that of faith and prayer. Faith is
connected with the awesome world of unseen power that is greater than anything
the visible world can produce. All the atomic weapons in the world could not make
the sea part and dry enough for masses to walk across. They might take the walls of
Jericho down, but it would be by use of a weapon and not by the unseen power of
God, which is more amazing. Faith is emotional because it links us to the invisible,
the beyond, the above, the incredible world of the unseen. A faith that does not
affect our emotions is as bad as a faith that is only emotions. This is just one aspect
of faith, but an important one that needs the others to be complete.
VOLITIO3AL
1. Every one of these persons of faith had to make choices based on that faith.
Each had to will to obey the will of God, and this volitional choice led to acts of the
body, mind and emotions. 3oah, no doubt, had to endure a great deal of mocking
for building an ark so large and not near any water. He had to pay a heavy price to
obey, but he chose to do so by an act of his will. We do not know if he liked it, or
could make any sense of it all, but he willed to go ahead and obey God. That is faith
at work.
2. If you go back to chapter 4 you will read of those who heard the gospel in the
Old Testament, but verse 2 says it was of no value to them because they did not have
a faith that acted on the promise of God. They failed to choose to obey God’s
command to take the land, and this lack of willingness to obey God made their

6. knowing the promise of God of no value. True faith will make choices that show one
really believes what God has promised. If a person says they have faith in the
unseen, but all of their choices in life seem to revolve around the seen only, then you
have reason to question if their faith is real.
3. My parents tell me that I was born at home and not in the hospital. I have to
take this on faith for my memory of that event is more than vague. I choose to
believe my parents and act on that belief by telling everyone who asks where I was
born that it was in the home. I have no reason to doubt them, and I have no reason
to doubt the promises of God and so I will, or choose, to believe and act on that
belief. The Bible says Jesus is the only way to God, and He is the only one who can
save us. Faith then says I will choose to trust in Jesus as my Savior. Faith is as act of
the will to obey what God has revealed. Jay 3. Forrest writes, “Charles Finney gives
the best definition of faith that I have ever heard, he says, "Faith is the will's
reception of truth." It is not the mind's acceptance of truth. It's not the confession of
truth. It is the decision to let the truth determine one's thoughts, words, attitudes,
and actions. Faith is a phenomenon of the will in obeying the truth, as it is
illuminated by the Spirit.
Faith is believing with the mind, feeling with the heart, choosing with the will,
and obeying with the body to do that which you know to be the will of God for you.
It is mental acceptance, heart appreciation, bodily action, and volitional assertion.
Faith involves the total person, and the house of faith is not complete until all
aspects are involved. The Amplified Bible gives this definition of faith: "leaning of
your whole personality on Him in complete trust and confidence in His power,
wisdom, and goodness" (1 Thessalonians 1:8). You cannot think that you have real
faith just because you believe the Gospel to be true. The devil and demons believe
and know it to be true, but they do not respond by choosing to obey and bow to
Jesus as Lord. There has to be action to follow up on the belief. Peter Marshall said,
"But faith is not belief. Faith is belief plus what you do with that faith. .......Belief
becomes faith only at the point of action.” There is such a thing as dead faith. This is
belief that does not motivate to action and obedience. To say you believe in Jesus as
the Savior, and yet do nothing in obedience to Him is to have a dead faith. The faith
of every person in this chapter led them to act on their belief. You can have a heart,
but if it does not pump blood you will be dead. If there is no flow of blood the blood
will not give life. There has to be movement for there to be life, and this is true with
faith also. If it just sets idle as a mental awareness of truth, but does not move to
action, it is a dead faith, just as a body with a heart and blood is dead when they just
set idle and there is no movement. True faith does not just believe the truth, it
surrenders to it, and that involves the whole life.
The point of seeing that faith involved the whole person is that it eliminates the
false views of faith that people put their trust in that are not adequate. The Gospel is
the good news that we are saved by faith alone and not by our works, but this can
easily be misunderstood to mean that saying you believe in Jesus leads to salvation
even if it is not followed by acts of the body, mind, will and emotions. It is faith that
saves, but not a faith that does not work. A faith that works is a faith that gets the
body, mind, will and emotions involved. It is not just saying that I believe in Jesus

7. that pleases God, but the faith that walks with Jesus in loving obedience to His
teaching. It is a faith that struggles with the mental challenges of trying to apply the
teaching of Jesus in everyday life. It is a faith that gets the body involved in getting
to a place of worship, and to a place where there is Bible study for growth. It is a
faith that motivates to think positively of how we can be used to encourage others
and benefit the body of Christ. It is faith that leads to joy in worship and in serving
Jesus. In other words, faith that is living and not dead is a faith that touches the
whole person. Someone who says they believe in Jesus, but then shows no interest in
pursuing the life of joy in walking with Him and worshiping Him, do not have the
God pleasing joy of this chapter.
This chapter gives us many examples of faith in the lives of a great variety of
people. We see the rich and the poor, the scholar and the unlearned, the leader and
the follower, the successful and the failure, the righteous and the unrighteous, the
young and the old, the male and the female, and the Jew and the Gentile. This is
encouraging because people are very different in their backgrounds, intellectual and
physical capacity, emotional makeup, and a host of other personality traits. There is
no one who is so handicapped in some way that they cannot have a God pleasing
faith. But let us notice that all of these examples are just witnesses that it can be
done by anybody. That is what chapter 12:1 calls them, and then it goes on to say
that we are to fix our eyes, not on these witnesses, but on Jesus, the author and
perfecter of our faith. Jesus is the greatest in everything, and that includes faith.
His mind was fully involved in the mission to save the lost, and He gave us the
greatest intellectual guidance for the righteous life. His body was so committed to
the cause that he laid it down in a painful death for our salvation. His will was so
committed to it that even when he had the chance to escape He refused to do so. He
could have bowed to Satan and received power over the kingdoms of the world, but
He chose to die instead. His life was not taken from Him, it was given by Him.
Emotionally he was delighted to die for us, for it says in 12:2 that it was the joy that
was before Him that enabled Him to endure the cross. Jesus is the greatest and
highest example of faith. His total being was committed to pleasing God.
We cannot match Jesus, and we may not be able to match many of the great
examples of chapter 11, but we can all have a faith that pleases God, for perfection
of faith and quantity of faith is not the key factor. The key to faith being pleasing to
God, and thereby effective in making us part of the plan of God, is that it is focused
on Jesus. You do not need a mountain of faith to please God, for even a mustard
seed of faith can move mountains. Your faith does not need to be great and super-sized,
but it does need to be in one who is great and super, and that is Jesus. He is
the one who saves; the one who intercedes for us before the throne of God; the one
who sends His Spirit to fill us and guide us, and the one who will come again and
take us to the place He has prepared for us for all eternity. It is not your faith, but
the object of your faith that makes it pleasing to God. Many people have a great
faith in someone other than Jesus, and their great faith is of no value compared to
the one who has a little faith, which is focused on Jesus. Fix your eyes on Jesus and
you will run the race of life successfully, for that is the faith that pleases God.

8. God pleasing faith simple says I am sure that the shed blood of Jesus is adequate
to cover my sins. I am sure that He will keep His promise to raise me from the dead,
or transform me when He comes again, and that He will take me to heaven to live
with Him forever. I am sure Jesus would not lie and deceive me, but that He will
fulfill all that He has promised. I am confident and filled with assurance concerning
what Jesus has promised, and because of this confidence I will live in obedience to
Him as my Lord and Savior. Life may bring many trials and tribulations like those
we see at the end of this chapter, but I will persevere and never give up my hope in
Jesus. Often people do not read the whole chapter, and they jump to the conclusion
that being a person of faith always leads to victory and the good life. It did for many
of these Old Testament saints, but notice how others had to endure what is terrible.
They were imprisoned, tortured, persecuted, stoned and killed in a variety of awful
ways, and were often homeless. It is not a pretty picture that is given for all who
were people of faith. But they were all commended for they never let the suffering
they had to endure make them take their eyes off the promise of God. Those who
never take their eyes off Jesus will persevere to the end. Again we see that faith is
focused on the unseen reality that we are convinced is the ultimate reality. The
bottom line is that people of faith always please God because they never give up on
His promises in Christ.
It is not always easy to have this kind of persistent faith. Sometimes the physical
reality of this lost world overwhelms us, and we begin to doubt the reality of the unseen
world. Sometimes we cry out with Jesus in His agony on the cross, “My God, My God,
why have you forsaken me?” We ask why life has to be the way it is if we are children of
God, and we see our faith becoming weak under the pressure of negative circumstances
beyond our control. We need to recognize that it is not the strength of our faith that
matters, but that we keep looking to Jesus no matter what. Fix your eyes on Jesus, who
endured all that this rotten evil world can do to a good person, and see Him now exalted
to the throne on the right hand of God. He went through hell with joy because He knew
that it would be temporary, and that heaven would be eternal. That is what we have to do
when we suffer in this world. Chuck Swindoll preached it when he said, “Christians are
not supernaturally protected from the blasts, the horrors, or the pains of living on
this globe. We can be unfairly treated, assaulted, robbed, raped, and murdered. We
can suffer financial reversals, abuse or neglect, and be divorced by uncaring mates.
But, unlike those around us, we can be joyful because He promises that deep within
He will give us peace...an unexplainable, illogical inner peace.”
Note that he calls it illogical peace, for it is a paradox to have peace in a time of pain,
and joy in time of suffering. Jesus had joy in the worst suffering ever, and the only way to
have this peace and joy is by faith in Jesus, which is faith in the unseen. He is not visible,
but we have the record of what He did and taught and felt when He was in the flesh, and
He is the same now in His unseen state as He was then. He cares and He will save us out
of this world of suffering into a world of eternal peace and joy. If we believe Him we can
have a taste of that joy and peace even in the midst of the suffering. It is a paradox,
but we can suffer with joy if we have faith that joy is eternal and suffering is just
temporary. This does not mean that we do not suffer and feel the pain and sorrow of

9. life’s negatives, but it means that we have an added dimension that the faithless
person does not have. We add joy and peace to the mix based on our conviction
about the future. That is what faith is. It is being so sure that Jesus is going to be
true to His word that we have the ability to add positives to the negatives we have to
endure. Faith then is the victory that overcomes the world. It does so by addition.
Without faith every negative thing that comes in life subtracts from the joy and
pleasure of living. With faith we can always add something positive to balance out
the negatives.
That is the meaning behind the word used in the KJV, which says faith is the
substance of things hoped for. It is the having of something right now that is a part
of the ultimate future. We can taste that which we hope for now, and that taste
enables us to have joy in the midst of a fallen world where we all suffer to some
degree. Faith reaches out into the future and brings a chunk of it back into the
present. That little chunk helps us endure to the end, for it gives us the motivation to
press on looking to Jesus whatever the circumstances. Charles Spurgeon was
eloquent in his description of faith as the key to all of the Christian virtues. He
wrote, “"Faith is the silver thread upon which the pearls of the graces are to be
strung. Break that, and you have broken the string-the pearls lie scattered on the
ground; nor can you wear them for your own adornment. Faith is the mother of
virtues. Faith is the fire, which consumes sacrifice. Faith is the water, which
nurtures the root of piety. If you have not faith, all your graces must die. And in
proportion as your faith increases, so will all your virtues be strengthened, not all in
the same proportion, but all in some degree."
Spurgeon is saying that faith is the essence of the Christian life, and this is
confirmed by the fact that this chapter 11 of Hebrews is revealing to us that the
people all through history that pleased God were people of faith. Verse 6 says it is
impossible to please God without faith. This means that faith is the foundation for a
meaningful and successful life. 3o matter what a person accomplishes in life, it is of
no ultimate value if they do not please God. Ultimate success is not in fame or
fortune, but in a life of faith that is pleasing to God. This is a life that is possible for
every person to experience, for everyone can know the will of God, which He has
revealed in Jesus; they can choose to obey that will, and they can walk in obedience
with joy as they grow in their knowledge of that will, and that is what faith is. It is
our mind, body, will and emotions committed to our unseen Lord and His promises
for the future, which is the hope for which we live.