FAITH is belief in something that can?t be touched, seen, or otherwise proved. In the Bible, faith describes belief in God.
Faith is also the conviction based on past experience that God?s new and fresh surprises will surely be ours. The beginning point of faith is believing in God?s character? He is who he says. The end point is believing in God?s promises? He will do what he says. When we believe that God will fulfill his promises even though we don?t see those promises materialising yet, we demonstrate true faith. God called the universe into existence out of nothing; he declared that it was to be, and it was. Our faith is in the God who created the entire universe by his word. God?s word has awesome power. When he speaks, do you listen and respond? How can you better prepare yourself to respond to God?s word?
Apart from some biblical patriarchs of faith that I shall feature in this episode, I believe a story in the 18th century will interest you. Mary McLeod was born to former slaves in 1875; few would have assumed that she would one day change the face of American education. But she did. After teaching for only five years, she founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls. Today, Florida School is known as Bethune-Cookman College.
In the beginning, Mary McLeod Bethune operated on a shoestring; she had almost no resources except faith. Bethune once observed, ?Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.? So the next time you come face-to-face with the illusion of impossibility, remember that faith is the foundation upon which great school and great miracles are built. It?s up to you to believe and to achieve accordingly. That is about Mary McLeod?s testimony.
In the Old Testament, faith is described as continued belief in Israel?s God and in the covenant that God made with them. The Old Testament, beginning with the story of Abraham, tells the story of how that covenant was made and kept. God sustained and protected Israel from the beginning, and led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.
In return, the people obeyed God without seeing him, and this set the pattern for faithfulness in the Old Testament. Abraham left his native land to go into unknown territory. The people of Israel followed God out of Egypt to a land they could not see. The promise of God gave them courage to possess the land promised to them. The covenant of Abraham was confirmed with the people of Israel by the sprinkling of blood (Exodus 24:6-7). Old Testament poetry, as well as the writings of prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah, also talks about faith. Again and again, the writers of the Psalms express their belief that God will protect them, even in the darkest of times. Habakkuk points out: ?the righteous shall live by his faith? (Hebrews 2:4).
While the early parts of the Old Testament?Genesis, Exodus, and other books dealing with Israel?s history? often discuss faith as shown by whole nations or groups of people, these later books talk about the ways individuals can show faith through private actions.
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