In one of my many discussions with a Catholic friend of mine, when we were reasoning about justification by faith, he said something which was very thought-provoking. He said, “If I go in front of the church and place a pencil on a table, will you by your faith get the pencil to move 1 inch up off the table? Jesus said if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we would be able to move mountains. So if you can’t get the pencil to move even 1 inch off the table, what is your faith?”
Although what he said reflected a fundamental misunderstanding in the way faith works, it was challenging. What is our faith? What IS faith?
Is faith, as it is commonly supposed, mere belief? A good many people believe, but is mere belief actually what we call faith? Edward F. Hills put it this way:
“What is the difference between faith and doubting? Many Christians are unable to answer this question because they confuse divine, God given faith with mere animal or human belief. Animal belief arises spontaneously out of habit. If you put your dog's food in a certain bowl, he will soon believe that this is the place to go when hungry. But if you stop putting food in the bowl, his belief will begin to give place to doubt and will eventually cease. Our human beliefs likewise arise involuntarily out of our experience. For example, unless we are very ill or in great danger, we cannot help believing that we will be alive tomorrow, because this has always been our experience. Yet we cannot be sure. So when we believe anything, we partly doubt it, and when we doubt anything we partly believe it. But our faith in God is different from all our other beliefs. For otherwise this faith would be in part a doubting, and our thinking would be no better than a dog's. God is the Truth, the Supreme Reality on which all other realities depend. A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He (Deut. 32:4). And because God is most real, we must believe in Him as such. We must let nothing else be more real to us than God. For this is faith! Anything less than this would be doubting. We must make God and Jesus Christ His Son the starting point of all our thinking. “
I think that says it all.
Now let us hear the Word of God: “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6)
Faith is a wonderfully powerful thing. Later in the same passage, we read that “through faith [they] subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.
Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection:
And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; Of whom the world was not worthy.” (Hebrews 11:33-38)
It was through faith that all these amazing feats were accomplished. It was not the people who did it, but God through them.
“Not by strength, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zech 4:6)
