Scripture: Hebrews 11:1 ESV — “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
There is a misconception about faith that will drain you if you live by it. It conveys the idea that the burden of what comes from faith rests on you. Along the way, it’s possible you learned that faith is only as powerful as your level of belief rather than your level of surrender. When you feel compelled to approach God based upon your level of belief, you immediately begin to judge yourself instead of submitting yourself.
For as long as people have sought to walk in the fruits of godliness, there has always been a human effort to reduce what comes from faith to a formulaic system of religion—trying to derive from human nature a certainty of what can only come from God’s nature. The truth is, our capacity to believe must originate from God’s capacity to impart belief.
It is hard to understand why we have a tendency to declare the greatness of God in one breath, and in the next one embrace the impossibility that we elicit His power with faith that is dependent on our will. This is, in fact, draining, because we believe from a shallow well of human will, instead of from the bottomless well of grace-empowered faith.
Looking at today’s passage, it’s easy to see how people have misunderstood what it means. It says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for.” Quick logic says the Bible is teaching that whatever you hope for, coupled with unwavering assurance that God will do it, is an assured positive result up ahead.
The problem with this is it assumes that whatever you hope for is a part of God’s will. If that were the case, then why would it be necessary for God to have a will in the first place? The only thing that would be necessary is for your will to dictate God’s actions.
The truth that will release you to walk in a fulfilling faith that will not drain you is that genuine faith, which comes from walking in the understanding of God’s desires, will be the source of your well of hope. You will be liberated to die to yourself in order to be alive in Him.
The 11th-century theologian named Anselm of Canterbury coined a Latin phrase that embodies the power in the text you read above. The phrase is Credo ut intelligam. It means, “I believe so that I may understand.” It doesn’t mean, “I believe so that God will understand.”
Faith is not making your will known to God; it’s ensuring that your will is informed by His will. It’s living with the assurance that the things you hope for originate from the heart of God. Faith is doing an inventory of your hopes to discern if they are self-serving, or if they serve God.
We should approach God with a heart of discovery—to declare an intent to follow after God’s heart. This requires a humble surrender to forsake what contends for influence over our soul. When you walk in true submission to humility, motivated by a heart that values God’s will over your will, your heart will flee from the innate desire of the flesh to have its way.
The passage goes on to say also that faith is “the conviction of things not seen.” This means the evidence of a broken world that is all around you will not shift your dependence on Jesus, because we live with peace in spite of what we see, not because of what we see. We can do this because we know that it’s because of God’s power to speak things into existence that what we see should drive our conviction that peace lies within surrender to the unseen. It rests in what God speaks into existence. The Bible teaches us that Jesus is “the Word” in John 1:1. We know from the book of Genesis that the creation of the world is the fruit of what God spoke into existence.
Faith is about being discipled in the ways of God. It’s about letting His ways overrule the ways of man. God is growing you into someone who comes to Him with assured faith, guaranteed by your commitment to let His dreams be your dreams. And when we seek to walk in true boldness, we believe that boldness is not something we conjure up as believers, but it’s the embodiment of who Christ is in us. Boldness is something we respond to in obedience—it’s not something we’re expected to generate on our own. Boldness is responding to God’s call to partner with Him in seeing impossible things happen. Boldness is produced in you. It’s not produced by you.
This is something that should set you free from the pressure of working up belief instead of resting in the belief that true faith is a gift from God.
Trust in this gift. Believe in God’s genuine desire to grant you assurance rather than you trying to produce it.
Reflection:
What have you been trying to produce assurance of, rather than living in the assurance that God already produces?
How can you be intentional today to seek God’s heart for your life instead of seeking your own heart for a life of faith?
Ask God to reveal the ways in which you need to surrender to God’s gift of faith. What three things will you pray for today that He can help you shift your focus from faith you produce to faith God imparts?