Reflection: Faith

Just like repentance, faith is essential to the Christian life. In the gospels, Jesus commended people for their faith with words like “Your faith has made you well”. Likewise, faith is the only basis on which we can be saved. In Galatians 3:6 we read ‘Consider Abraham: He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness”’ and in verse 11 ‘Clearly, no-one is justified before God by the law, because,
“The righteous will live by faith”.

Sometimes we tend to think of faith as a thing in itself, but faith is always directed at someone or something. Everyone has faith in something, but unless it is faith in God and the Lord Jesus Christ, it is
misplaced faith in something that will ultimately let them down.

People and things don’t last forever, nor can they deal with every possible thing that could happen. If we put our trust in something or someone other than God, we are indulging in what the bible calls
idolatry.

How do we acquire this faith? It is not something we can drum up by sheer willpower. It is a gift from God. Ephesians 2:8 reads ‘For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God’. However, God is not a reluctant giver. He gives it to us through the power of His Word, the Bible, as we read it. Let’s take Him at His Word, because, that is what faith is.
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Kevin Haigh