Walking by Faith

One of the more memorable verses in the Bible is Hebrews 11:1 which says, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Sometimes, though, familiarity causes us to overlook some very important concepts. There is something very significant in this verse that is easy to overlook, which in turn leads to a misunderstanding of related verses.

Notice that faith is not the "things hoped for," and it is not the things "not seen."

Faith is not hoping for something. Faith is the substance of what we hope for. In other words, faith is that which brings our hopes into living color and reveals them to our senses.

Faith is not composed of what we cannot see. Faith is the evidence that what we cannot see is real – that even the things that we cannot see are truth. Faith is substance – solid matter and observable phenomena that make visible those things that are for the moment invisible.

Faith is our observation of what has been and what is, which leads us to act on the belief that what will be or what cannot yet be seen is truth.

Faith is not based on what we cannot see but on what we can see.

Faith in Christ means that we take the full measure of Christ – who He is, what He has done, of his ministry, his passion, his death and resurrection – all things that are either evidential (his deity) or observable (his ministry), and on that basis we trust in what is coming.

With this understanding, read again Ephesians 2:8, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." It should now be more apparent than ever why the faith that leads to salvation does not find its source within us, but in Christ. He is the substance and the evidence – the solid ground upon which our salvation and our future are founded and secured.

Thus a walk of faith is not a leap in the dark, but a walk in the light which reveals the future to us with the same assurance as if it were a current event.

Walking by faith means resting in the knowledge of Christ gleaned from the word of God as well as our personal experience of knowing Him as Lord and Savior.

Here is the concrete and substantive foundation for previewing the future, which should reduce or remove our fear of coming days.