WHAT IS FAITH AND HOW DOES IT WORK?
Taken from a question sent to Evangelist Mischa Safdie' by email
WHAT IS FAITH? How can one REALLY define faith? I had someone ask me this question today and explained it to him in writing. I thought it was interesting and a question some of you might have so I cut and pasted part of my reply below so you could read and enjoy, as follows:
"Let me tell you a story. There once was a mountain climber who was climbing down from a mountain. Dusk set it and it became dark before he could get down. He could not see, was stuck on the mountain and continued to try and climb down. But he lost his footing and fell quite a distance. However, before hitting the ground he managed to grab hold of a ledge and was hanging there, gripping it with all his might and holding on for dear life. It was pitch black dark and freezing cold. There was a blizzard on top of that and the man could scarcely even see the hands in front of him. He began to pray out loud, "Dear God, please help me!" Then he heard a Voice reply out loud, "Just let go". He pondered what he had heard and yelled back, "Are you crazy? If I just let go I will die!" The Voice shouted back, "Let go of the ledge!" The man yelled back, "No! I can't!" So the man continued to hold onto the ledge and hang there. The next morning hikers and mountain rescue workers found the frozen and dead man. He was hanging from the ledge, frozen to death, and his feet were only 6 inches off the ground. If he had just let go!
Let me respond to your question about faith by simply saying this. I understand faith probably in ways you may not simply because I have been forced to walk in it and learn it many times over in my own life when all medical doctors told me I would never be healed of a heart condition and much more. As a minister I experience how faith works very often and see it first hand....not only read what others say about it or what happened to them. I have ministered to people personally, prayed for them, anointed them with oil and laid hands on them and have seen them healed of undeniably incurable diseases with medical proof and much more. I do not say this as any put down but simply would tell you that you that many people, including myself at times, have at times walked in defeat ourselves so often simply because we have a lack of a full and complete understanding of faith and how it is appropriated. Having said that, I do however agree with you in part. The Bible tells us that to EACH IS GIVEN A MEASURE OF FAITH. Right? So faith is there. However, you do not believe we have to use it or exercise it if it is already there and I disagree. You need to remember that in addition to the above scripture the Bible tells us to FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH, so you have to use it and there is a definite battle that takes place in the human heart and mind that causes us to have to "fight" the good fight of faith. I agree that faith is there all the time, but we do have an "enemy" (the devil), as the Bible says and Satan is there to continually create illusions and very real situations to create FEAR and UNBELIEF in order to get the believer not to exercise that faith...not to use it. Fear and unbelief are two things that can absolutely neutralize the faith you may already have. I know this from personal experience. Fear is an anti-christ counterfeit to faith and often works the same way. Satan also LIES to the believer so that he or she will NOT use or take faith. Also many believers THINK they have faith when in reality they have the greatest enemy to faith and use that instead. It is called MENTAL ASSENT. They agree mentally about something but really do not believe in their heart or deep inside. Finally, the Word tells us, THAT FAITH "COMES" BY HEARING AND HEARING THE WORD OF CHRIST. Right? So if faith "comes" then to some extent the faith we need either must not all be there or it may have needed to be added to or grow...or it would not need to "come". Jesus many times rebuked his own disciples and would say, "YE OF LITTLE FAITH". I believe we all do have "A MEASURE" of faith, but I have come to learn, know and understand that faith can grow. It grows by exercising it and by hearing the Word of Christ. Its like a muscle. Compare your statement that we all have faith using this same analogy, okay? Just like we all have faith at salvation, as you said. We all have muscles in our body already too when we are born. We come with them...are born with them. Right? But as we grow and mature we "develop" them and even strengthen them through nutrition (likened to faith coming by hearing the Word of God as a source of food and nutrition)) and by being placed in situations where we have to exercise our faith (like working on your muscles in a gym.) I hope this helps and gives you some food for thought. I might also add some food for thought. Some believe there is a natural human faith all people have and then there is a special faith that comes from God "after" you are saved. For instance, every time you get in an airplane and fly you have faith that the thing will stay in the air and get you where you want to go, whether you are a Christian or not. This is natural faith. I won't go into all that right now because I want you to stay with my main thought about this topic. We can extend the conversation later but there is a natural human faith that all people have and a God faith that I believe comes through the Holy Spirit at conversion and grows through the Word of God and exercising it in our lives.
