FAITH-DEFINED
"Faith"
is not believing the unbelievable but trusting in God's word because of what
one has come to know of God's character. And faith always "goes
public" in acts of obedience, since a "faith" that does not obey
is not a true, justifying faith at all (James 2:21-26).
The God of Promise and the Life of
Faith. Crossway Books, 2001, p. 76.
Faith is trusting God to do what he has promised because we are
convinced by his provisions that God is both willing and able to keep His
Word.
Scott Hafemann
The God of Promise and the Life of
Faith. Crossway Books, 2001, p. 84.
Faith
involves knowledge, assent, and trust. We must know the biblical facts
concerning Jesus Christ; we must believe them to be true; and on that belief we
must commit ourselves to Jesus in trusting reliance.
Richard D. Phillips
Assured by God, ed. Burk Parsons, P&R, 2006, p. 79. Used by Permission.
[Faith] is trust in God's character and obedience to His
living voice expressed in His Word. Consequently the object of faith in the Old
Testament is the promise of God which awaits its fulfillment in the coming of
Christ. Faith looked forward then, just as now it looks backward to its object
in Christ. It is interesting to notice how this is expressed in the teaching of
Hebrews that “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do
not see (Heb. 11:1).” In fact this perspective runs through the whole of
Hebrews 11-Noah...Abel...Enoch...and Abraham “did not receive the things
promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance (vs. 13).” Even
the martyrs who were commended for their faith did not receive what had been
promised (vs. 39). Faith for them was hearing the testimony of God, trusting
His promise, and living in the light of God's faithfulness to it.
Sinclair Ferguson
The Christian Life, p. 63, 1997, by
permission Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA.
There
are at least 3 kinds of Christian faith:
1.
Saving
faith (product of the new birth).
2.
Sanctifying
faith (the fruit of the Holy Spirit), which comes in two forms:
a.
Our
faith/belief in the truth of God’s Word (faith in the doctrines of the Bible).
b.
Faith
in the trustworthiness/goodness of God Himself.
3.
Supernatural
faith (a spontaneous gift of the Holy Spirit).
Sam
Storms
Ephesian 6 – Part 2, November 8, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com,
Used by Permission.
Belief is
confidence placed in the truth of what God has revealed to us in Scripture
about who He is and our relationship to Him through Jesus. Belief does not
hover aimlessly in mid-air, but plants itself in the firm foundation of
inspired, revelatory words inscripturated for us in
the Bible.
Sam Storms
Copied
from: Pleasures Evermore: The Life-Changing Power of Knowing God by Sam Storms,
© 2000, p. 189. Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.org.
All rights reserved.
Put simply,
faith is believing in something you haven't seen. If
you're a Christian, that means believing that what God has said is true and
then acting in accordance with that conviction, regardless of what everyone
else believes and how the world expects you to act. It means you'll probably act
in ways that defy reason. It may mean giving up your ambition, and it may cost
you your comfort. It may even cost you your life.
John MacArthur
Faith is the flip
side of repentance. While repentance speaks of turning from sin, faith is
turning to the Savior. The object of saving faith is not a creed, not a church,
not a pastor, not a set of rituals or ceremonies. Jesus is the object of saving
faith.
John MacArthur
The Gospel According to Jesus, © John MacArthur, 1988, p. 112.
Faith as [Jesus]
characterized it is nothing less than a complete exchange of all that we are
for all that He is.
John MacArthur
The Gospel According to Jesus, © John MacArthur, 1988, p. 135.
Faith is
man’s response to God’s elective purpose
John MacArthur
Having
faith is trusting in the revelation of God.
John MacArthur
The
Way of the Fig Tree: Promise Without Performance. The
article originally appeared (www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/2352) at www.gty.org
© 1969-2008, Grace to You, All Rights Reserved, Used by Permission.
Faith is a
dynamic, powerful force, through which the believer is intimately united with
Christ, his Lord.
Douglas
Moo
James, Eerdmans, 2000, p. 141.
Faith…holds
on to truth and reason from what it knows to be fact.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Spiritual
Depression – Its Causes and its Cures, 1965, p. 144, Used
by Permission from Elizabeth Catherwood (daughter).
Faith is a
refusal to panic.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Spiritual
Depression – Its Causes and its Cures, 1965, p. 143,
Used by Permission from Elizabeth Catherwood (daughter).
Faith is this
extraordinary principle which links man to God; faith is this thing that keeps
a man from hell and puts him in heaven; it is the connection between this world
and the world to come; faith is this mystic astounding thing that can take a
man dead in trespasses and sins and make him live as a new being, a new man in
Christ Jesus.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Spiritual
Depression – Its Causes and its Cures, 1965, p. 227,
Used by Permission from Elizabeth Catherwood (daughter).
Faith,
obviously, is not a mere matter of feeling. It cannot be, because one’s
feelings in this kind of condition can be very changeable. A Christian is not
meant to be dejected when everything goes wrong. He is told to “rejoice”.
Feelings belong to happiness alone, rejoicing takes in something much bigger
than feelings; and if faith were a matter of feelings only, then when things go
wrong and feelings change, faith will go. But faith is not a matter of feelings
only, faith takes up the whole man including his mind, his intellect and his
understanding. It is response to truth.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Spiritual
Depression – Its Causes and its Cures, 1965, p. 142,
Used by Permission from Elizabeth Catherwood (daughter).
Faith is not
an instinct. It certainly is not a feeling – feelings don’t help much when
you’re in the lions’ den or hanging on a wooden Cross. Faith is not inferred from
the happy way things work. It is an act of will, a choice, based on the
unbreakable Word of a God who cannot lie, and who showed us what love and
obedience and sacrifice mean, in the person of Jesus Christ.
Elisabeth Elliot
Secure
in the Everlasting Arms, Revell, 2002, p. 94.
[Christians]
look away from themselves to Christ. They believe that God has loved them from
eternity past. They believe that the payment of Christ on the cross for sins
was for them. They find Christ irresistible, and following Him the greatest
privilege of all. They have faith in Christ and what He has done for them. They
trust Christ, looking outside of themselves to Him
alone.
Jim Elliff
A
Three-legged Stool: All Side of God’s Salvation Process, Christian
Communicators Worldwide, www.CCWtoday.org.
Used by Permission.
If
my car was inoperative and I went to the mechanic for help, I would have to
hand over the keys. That is my action of trust in the mechanic. It is fides
vive – living faith.
Without doing that, all my talk about the competency of the mechanic results in
nothing. And so, without our giving the keys of life over to Christ, we have
never really trusted. This is Bible belief simply stated.
Jim Elliff
A
Three-legged Stool: All Side of God’s Salvation Process, Christian
Communicators Worldwide, www.CCWtoday.org.
Used by Permission.
Faith does
not operate in the realm of the possible. There is no glory for God in that
which is humanly possible. Faith begins where man's power ends.
George Muller
Leadership, v. 12, n. 4.
Faith has
nothing to do with feelings or with impressions, with improbabilities or with
outward experiences. If we desire to couple such things with faith, then we are
no longer resting on the Word of God, because faith needs nothing of the kind.
Faith rests on the naked Word of God. When we take Him at His Word, the heart
is at peace.
George Muller
Quoted in: William Henry Harding, The Life of George
Muller, Barbour, 1985, p. 22.
Faith is the
assurance that the thing which God has said in His word is true, and that God
will act according to what He has said in his word... Faith is not a matter of
impressions, nor of probabilities, nor of appearances.
George Muller
Man of Faith.
Faith never
knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One who is leading.
Oswald Chambers
Faith…involves
trusting in the future promises of God and waiting for their fulfillment.
R.C. Sproul
Tabletalk, p. 6, v. 28, n. 9, Ligonier
Ministries, Used by Permission.
Faith is a
reasoning trust, a trust which reckons thoughtfully and confidently upon the
trustworthiness of God.
John Stott
Faith is the
way in which I can look away from myself – both from my sin and my progress in
sanctification – and look to Christ as my only hope.
Robert Godfrey
Sin and Salvation, Tabletalk, April
2004, p. 18, Used by Permission.
Faith is
deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand
at the time.
Oswald Chambers
Faith is to believe what we do not see, and the reward of this
faith is to see what we believe.
Augustine
Faith…is a
steady and certain knowledge of the Divine benevolence towards us, which being
founded on the truth of the gratuitous promise in Christ, is both revealed to
our minds, and confirmed to our hearts, by the Holy Spirit.
John Calvin
Sight is not faith,
and hearing is not faith, neither is feeling faith; but believing
when we neither see, hear, nor feel is faith; and everywhere the Bible
tells us our salvation is to be by faith. Therefore we must believe before we
feel, and often against our feelings, if we would honor God by our faith.
Hannah Whitall
Smith
Faith is spiritualized imagination.
Henry Ward Beecher
It is the
office of faith to believe what we do not see, and it shall be the reward of
faith to see what we do believe.
Thomas Adams
A Puritan Golden Treasury,
compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 103.
One
definition of faith might be “Obeying the revealed will of God and trusting Him
for the results.”
Jerry Bridges
Copied
from The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges, © 1996, p. 144. Used by
permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com. All Rights Reserved.
Faith is
rest, not toil. It is the giving up all the former weary efforts to do or feel
something good, in order to induce God to love and pardon; and the calm
reception of the truth so long rejected, that God is not waiting for any such
inducements, but loves and pardons of His own goodwill, and is showing that
goodwill to any sinner who will come to Him on such a footing, casting away his
own poor performances or goodnesses, and relying
implicitly upon the free love of Him who so loved the world that He gave His
only-begotten Son.
Horatius Bonar
The Everlasting Righteousness.
Faith honors
him whom it trusts with the most reverent and highest regard since it considers
him truthful and trustworthy. There is no other honor equal to the estimate of truthfulness
and righteousness with which we honor him whom we trust. Could we ascribe to a
man anything greater than truthfulness and righteousness and perfect goodness?
Martin Luther
Freedom of a Christian, p. 59.
Faith is not
belief without proof, but trust without reservations.
Elton Trueblood
I wonder how
many believers today realize that faith is not merely
believing that Christ died for our sins. Faith is also being confident
that His way is better than sin. His will is more wise.
His help is more sure. His promises
more precious. And His reward more satisfying.
Faith begins with a backward look at the cross, but it lives with a forward
look at the promises
John Piper
How
Dead People Do Battle With Sin, Sermon, January 1, 1995, www.DesiringGod.org.
Used by Permission.
Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's
grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand
times.
Martin Luther
Faith
sees the invisible, believes the unbelievable, and receives the
impossible.
Corrie ten Boom
If
I trust in Christ, I believe in the wisdom of His commands as well as in the
sincerity of His promises. God does not command me to believe in this or that
promise of Christ. No, He tells me I must believe in the Lord Jesus Himself.
Tom Wells
Christian: Take Heart! By Permission of the
Banner of Truth Trust, Carlisle, PA. 1987, p. 150.
Faith, as
Paul saw it, was a living, flaming thing leading to surrender and obedience to
the commandments of Christ.
A.W. Tozer