What Is Faith

Faith is not simply trusting God to remove the pain or trial, but trusting God regardless, trusting His purposes even when it doesn’t make sense to us! It is impossible to handle suffering or trials apart from faith, apart from a deep trust in God and that means believing at least six things:

(1) Believing in the fact of a living God who has revealed Himself, redeemed us through Christ, and is personally at work in and through the circumstances of life no matter how dark;

(2) Believing that there is a heaven which is better than this life

(3) Believing that there will be a millennium and an eternal state which far exceeds this life

(4) Believing that there are rewards for faithfulness and overcoming the trials of life by faith

(5) Believing that the building of character now through suffering is more important than our comfort because of God’s glory and our eternal rewards

(6) Believing that regardless of how crazy this world is, we know that God is in charge, has a perfect plan, and is wisely carrying out this plan after the counsel of His own will and purposes.

The ultimate issue is this: The Lord said, “Unless a man deny himself (his purposes, aspirations, values, pursuits, etc.), he cannot be my disciple.”

Are we living for our happiness or for God’s will? Are our goals and aims temporal or eternal?