What is Faith? ...

Tuesday, March 21, 2017. It is faith that is in the center of all biblical books. What is faith? It is trusting God. It is putting the creator and source of this world into the center of our life. It is about the perspective of our life, about what it is, what it is filled with … And there is more: faith is a relationship. But let us go step by step into more detail!

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Jesus on Faith …

Faith is more than just thinking something is true. It is about my personal relationship to that truth. In the bible this is made very clear: even the demons and the devil know the truth, but they do not live in it. So it is about what makes my life. But there is more. Let us look into the gospel of Luke, where Jesus talks about faith:

Lk 5,20 And when he saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” Lk 7,9 When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” Lk 7,50 And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” (from Luke)

Jesus comes with forgiveness, when it comes to faith. There are so many healing stories, where faith is in the center of the experiences. Your faith has helped you! Your faith has healed you! Your faith has saved you! Your sins are forgiven! Jesus talks about sin - even when the people do not want to hear about it, but just come with their immediate needs.

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Making all new! …

Jesus is making all things new. That is the core point. He is, in the first place, burying our sins. They are taken to the cross. They are destroyed. They are paid for. They are taken serious, but they are brought into death. It is all in his death at the cross. Death is in the center of the Christian message, but also life, new life, an eternal perspective. It could not be less, the whole world has death as its main problem until today.

Faith is about taking part in the community of new life, of eternal life. In and through Christ this community is established for all humans. It comes to us through faith. Faith is about our free decisions, about our will. It is about our mind and our heart, about all we are. God wants love, we are invited to discover this love, and to put it into practice. We are given freedom to love, since all is paid for. We are justified in Christ. Now, we can discover how fantastic he is, how majestic he is!

Faith is a new relationship, which discovers how trustworthy God is, and which believes him and believes in him. It is about myself, being filled by his truth, by his love, by his mercy, by his perspective, by his spirit! It is about new life, in the middle of the old life. Faith is fantastic, a deep treasure of unbelievable value, and with eternal perspective. What a story! (Roland Potthast) ... more texts