What Is Faith — Secrets Hidden In Plain Sight
“The knowledge of what the Scripture means when urging upon us the necessity of cultivating faith, is more essential than any other knowledge that can be acquired.” Review and Herald Oct. 18, 1898
Understanding how to exercise and cultivate faith is the most essential and important knowledge that anyone on this planet can acquire.
It’s more important than a college degree and way more important than the knowledge of how to do your j.o.b. But in order to gain the knowledge of cultivating and exercising faith, we must first know what faith is.
To urge someone to cultivate faith and that person doesn’t have any clear idea of what faith is, you will be wasting your time. How can you tell someone to cultivate and exercise faith and that person have no idea of what faith is?
Although the Lord has made very clear in His Word what faith is, for some strange reason it is still hidden in plain sight from the majority of Church members! The majority of Church members have no intelligent idea of what faith is.
They can quote Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” They know the definition, but they don’t understand the idea that is contained in the definition. Just because you know the definition of something don’t mean you know what the THING is.
Since many know the definition of faith, but still don’t know what the THING is, we must look at an example of it in the Scriptures. This example is found in Matthew 8 and it makes faith stand out so clear that a child will be able to see faith in action and what the THING actually is.
“And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: BUT SPEAK THE WORD ONLY, and my servant shall be healed…When Jesus heard [it], he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so GREAT FAITH, no, not in Israel. Matthew 8:5–10
Right here is what Jesus calls faith! If we can find out what the centurion did we can know EXACTLY what faith is. Christ, who is the Author of faith, said that the centurion had great faith. So all we need to do is find out what the centurion did and copy him, and we too will have great faith. We will know what faith is. To understand what the centurion did is to understand what faith is because our Lord said he had great faith.
Well what did the centurion do? He needed to have his servant healed. When he heard of Jesus, he went to him and told him about his sick servant. Then Jesus said, “I will COME and heal him.” But the centurion presented his unworthiness of the great Jesus coming to his house and said, “SPEAK THE WORD ONLY AND MY SERVANT SHALL BE HEALED.”
How did the centurion want Jesus to accomplish the work of healing his servant? By the SPOKEN WORD ONLY. He BELIEVED that Jesus’ SPOKEN WORD, ALL BY ITSELF, would heal his servant. After the Word was spoken, what did the centurion depend on to accomplish the work of healing his servant? He dependant on the SPOKEN WORD ONLY, ALL BY ITSELF!
He didn’t look to or depend on nothing else but the naked WORD only, ALL BY ITSELF, and Jesus said this was GREAT FAITH!
Therefore, GREAT FAITH is BELIEVING that the SPOKEN WORD OF GOD, ALL BY ITSELF, will do what is spoken in that Word, and depending on nothing else but the naked word only, all by itself, to do what is spoken in that Word.
This is what faith is. Now that we know this, we can now learn how to cultivate and exercise faith.