Faith ...

Monday, March 21, 2011. “If you have faith …” Jesus talks about faith many times in the New Testament. “Your faith has saved you” he says to several people, and then he heals them. Faith is crucial! What is faith?

Faith …

Faith has many dimensions. What is faith? What faith is Jesus talking about? From the conflicts about faith which are part of the New Testament we can learn a lot about what faith is and what faith is not!

Faith is not obedience to rules. The Pharesees were people, who claimed to take God serious. They wanted to live in faith. They followed rules. These rules were partly the rules which God himself had set - but there were also many details which were not given by the Lord himself. These people thought that they have faith when they follow the rules.

It is an interesting difficulty: faith without deeds is dead! Faith needs the component of action, of obedience, of doing what God wants, living according to God's character and will. You cannot have faith and never act or live accordingly! And there are some rather clear things which express what God wants. So we could make rules out of that and then follow the rules …

But rules do not express the core of faith. Rules just describe the actions, not the source of the actions. They are just some kind of second level controls!

Core of faith …

The core of faith is not the rules. The core of faith is somewhere deeper, somewhere deep inside of our life, of our emotions, of our soul. The core of faith is love. It is decisions. It is trust. It is the openness and surrender to the truth of the eternal God.

Faith is trust. Trust coming from knowledge of the Lord. Faith is belief. We believe his words, his promises. Faith is action. We go forward in his name. We live in his will. We do what he wants us to do. Faith is communication. We live with him. We listen to him and we talk to him.

Faith is community. It is community with the eternal God through the Holy Spirit. It is community with the Lord in bread and wine. It is community with others, who believe in him and belong to him. Faith is so much! ... more texts