We know this saying is Scripture; in fact, it's the words of Jesus (Matthew 17:20; Luke 17:6). Yet struggling with faith is common, struggling to believe small faith has any value is common, and Mark 9:24 records the father of a demon-possessed boy crying, "I do believe; help my unbelief!" We are like that. Even when we believe, we don't believe perfectly. (I think because deep down we tend to a "too good to be true" stance toward God and His plans and promises, for several reasons: we know we deserve hell in our fallen state, we've never experienced pure goodness in our fallen world, and God simply is "too good"--good to the absolute max, though not too good to be true.)
Hebrews 11 is often called the faith chapter, as it describes what faith does and then lists a number of Old Testament saints who displayed amazing faith and won great victories because of it. Notice this, though: none of these were people who did it perfectly. Abraham is commended for following God's call to a new land, even though he didn't know where he was going, and for offering up Isaac as a sacrifice on God's command. He is not, however, downgraded in this chapter for lacking the faith to be honest that Sarah was his wife when he faced King Abimelech (Genesis 20). Sarah is credited with faith to believe she'd conceive a child (Hebrews 11:11), but there's no mention here that her first reaction had been to laugh at the very idea. By faith, verse 29 says, the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, but we know from the very same book of the Bible (Hebrews 3:19) that they didn't enter God's rest because of their unbelief! What does all this mean? It means we can do it too. These were people like us. In our wavering, mustard-seed, growing, but imperfect faith, we can do it, too.
How? Well, there's a very good hint in verse 1. I'll quote it from the Amplified:
"Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen [the conviction of their reality--faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses]"
The King James uses the word "substance" instead of "assurance," and I like this word as well. That faith can turn a future hope into a present substance, even more, IS that present substance, is an exciting and powerful idea. And faith as evidence means faith comprehends as fact the hoped-for things that are yet future.
Hope, though.
Our ability to grasp this verse depends on our understanding of what hope is. The world perceives hope as a wishing or desiring for something to happen that may or may not in fact happen. If we carry that meaning of the word "hope" into our reading of this verse, we will decide faith is much harder than it actually is--perhaps even unreachable or senseless. But then what are "hoped-for things," according to the amplified meaning of the verse? They're not things we wish would come to pass but can't be sure of. They are divinely guaranteed things. I mean, what is a surer thing than a divinely guaranteed thing? These hoped-for things are the promises of God. When we, in response, extend our faith to say, "Yes, God, I believe You are Who You say You are, and Your promises are true," then His promises become our reality. Just as when we put our faith in Christ, He becomes ours.
Faith grows in confidence when we realize true hopes are divinely guaranteed things.
Let these, and many other, divinely guaranteed things help build your faith today.
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