What Is Faith? (Heb. 11:1-3)

(A) Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Now faith is the substance (title deed) of things hoped for. . .your faith is your title deed to eternal life. Just as title deed is evidence of real estate, so your faith is evidence of your eternal estate in God.

The word substance comes from a word meaning "Essence," Webster says that this word means the real part of a thing or the material of which a thing is made, so when we read Hebrews we can read it as:

(1) Faith is the essence of things hoped for.

(2) Faith is the inter part of your hope.

(3) Faith is the material of your hope.

Therefore, when we learn what faith is, we see that it is solid and it is what we are to fill our hope with, because if we have hope and no faith than our hope is empty, but when we add faith, faith makes our hope solid by filling us up with a drive to move forward into what we have hope for.

This means that if faith make hope solid then we want to know what "Solid hope" is once it becomes solid.

(1) SOLID HOPE, is having its interior filled with matter; not hollow in this we know that we have no hope in nothing as long as we are unsaved, so our hope is empty then one day we hear God's word and we are filled up with faith by the promises made by God in His word, therefore we now have something to look forward to "SO THEN FAITH COMETH BY HEARING AND HEARING BY THE WORD OF GOD." (Rom. 10:17).

(2) SOLID HOPE, is strong, firm, reliable; we see here that solid hope is strong, firm, and reliable, for once we hear the word of God without knowing or seeing the outcome we receive faith by just believing it: we read that Abraham staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was "strong" in faith, giving glory to God (Rom. 4:20). Abraham shows how strong hope stands, and by looking at the way Abraham takes on faith we see that he was strong in belief, (HE STAGGERED NOT AT THE PROMISE) we also see that God could depend on him because he was "reliable" (WHAT GOD HAD PROMISED ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD WAS ABLE TO PERFORM) (Rom. 4:21). He was "Firm" (BUT WAS STRONG IN FAITH, GIVING GLORY TO GOD).

Without Faith you have nothing, a blank screen in your life with nothing to point to.

 

With Faith there is something to reach for, something to hold onto.

Yes, you can hold onto His hands. Jesus reaches out to you and me and He waits for us to just take His hand in faith, and hold on for dear life, because it is about life.