Faith.
It’s easy to say you have faith in something or someone. Yet this is a challenging Christian doctrine. Faith is woven all throughout the book of Hebrews but especially in these last three chapters. The first verse of chapter 11 gives us the Bible’s clearest definition of faith:
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
According to chapter 11, we have faith in four basic things which are unseen: creation, a holy God, eternal life, and wrath and judgment. The writer then goes on to give multiple examples of Old Testament men and women who had faith in God’s unseen promises. The amazing thing about each of these faithful believers is that they never received what was promised (11:39). They had so much faith in the unknown and acted on that faith, but they never saw their faith come to fruition in the birth of the promised Messiah. How blessed we are to see the full picture and have God’s full revelation in his written Word!
Our faith will be tested because that’s simply a part of life. But we can’t give in to that testing. We must persevere. And the only way to persevere is by fixing our eyes (12:1b-2) and thoughts on Jesus (3:1). Look to Christ, not self. Where are my eyes looking?
Then there are evidences of true faith, including loving one another, helping those who are suffering and experiencing contentment in our circumstances. Which evidences of faith do others see in me?
There are three parts to faith: content (head knowledge), consent (believing what you know) and commitment (put the knowledge into practice). These are not steps we must take to achieve faith, but each part works together to help us experience true biblical faith.