Faith can be an elusive concept. For those of us who have grown up in the church, we’ve accepted an understanding of what faith is, claim to be men and women of faith, have faith in God and live by faith each day. Ask us what faith is and we’ll quote Hebrews 11:1 in the King James Version with confident satisfaction that faith has been defined clearly once and for all. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. “ But how does this clear up anything about what faith is? By our use of the word, faith is the “unseen” yet this verse points rather to faith being the evidence of things unseen. It’s like when a crime has been committed but with no witnesses. In this case we rely on evidence to prove who committed the crime. And invisible evidence would be pointless. You must be able to produce evidence that can be seen and examined. And so it is with our faith. Faith isn’t a feeling, a conviction or an invisible force of the supernatural. Our faith should become substance and serve as evidence to prove what God has done. This in turn will build the strongest case for His love at work in this world. That’s why the Bible tells us that faith without works is dead. Because real faith produces works which are tangible evidence of the unseen God. Your faith is substantial evidence of a loving God at work in and through your life.
