“And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”   Hebrews 11:6.
What is faith and why is faith purported to be so important to God? I suppose if I were an atheist I would say that faith is important to God because without it, God doesn’t exist! Most atheists that I have heard, seem to define “faith” as believing in something even though you lack “sufficient evidence” to support your belief. “Faith” is something that Christians and other religious people use to fill in the gaps of their knowledge of the world that we live in.

 

In the popular imagination, “faith” seems to be a belief in things that are most likely untrue but that you earnestly wish to be true and so you insist that it is true, in spite of the evidence. But what is Christian faith? Sometimes, we are told that if we would just have faith, God will heal our bodies or bless our business or whatever. This kind of “faith” seems to function as a sort of mechanism for making God do what you wish. But is this what it means to have Christian faith?

With all questions about faith, we have to ask ourselves, “Into what am I being asked to put my faith?” To have faith in something means to trust that the thing you are relying upon will actually do what it is purported to do. A chair was made to be sat upon. If we have faith in a chair, we will be putting our trust into the work of the craftsman, the strength of the wood, metal or plastic, and the design of the frame. We believe that the chair will be faithful to its’ intended design and will support us when we sit on it. The majority of the time, we are validated in our faith in the chair. But not always…

In the Christian world, the word “faith” is not always used to promote the real tenants of our faith. Sometimes we are asked to put our trust in odd behavior or in a charismatic leader. Sometimes we are told that we need to have faith that our wish is the same as God’s will and we need to insist on that our wish becomes a reality in the name of faith. But what kind of faith is it that pleases God? What is the faith that God requires us to have?

First of all, we have to remind ourselves who “God” actually is. Many atheists seem to assume certain things about God and what He would do if He existed. When God fails to measure up to their standard, they claim that this “proves” that God does not exist. I would like to ask them where they get their understanding of God and His behavior. The God of the Bible is the Hebrew’s God, the one who made heaven and earth. He is not like the rest of the gods of the world, images made out the things of nature, like wood, bronze, gold, etc. Nor is he a spirit or element of nature, like the sun. The God of the Hebrews made the wood, bronze, gold, and even the sun. He is higher and greater than all because He is the creator God. That there is such a being requires faith, as everything that we do requires faith (you wouldn’t even step outside your door if you didn’t have faith in gravity), but not more faith than it would take to believe that this being doesn’t exist. Again, we must remind ourselves of the different definitions of “faith”. Faith is trusting in something to be faithful to its’ purported purpose, it is not believing in something unlikely to be true or contrary to the evidence. The Hebrews testify about their God in their scriptures. The scriptural text do not prove anything just by their existence or because we have chosen to call them “holy”. The scriptural texts help us because they simply make sense. In my opinion, the Hebrew scriptures give us a picture and understanding of the world that makes more sense than any other proposal that I have ever heard.

The first item of faith that we are asking you to believe is that there is one and only one true God and His is the maker of all things. This doesn’t