Word of the Week: Faith

The word Faith is used over 450 times in the Bible so it must be pretty important. We use it a lot, but do we really know what it means? I love this simple definition from Billy Graham - Faith simply means believing that something is true, and then committing our lives to it. He explains that there are two parts to faith:

1. Believing that God exists, that he loves us and that he sent Jesus; and
2. Trusting him for our salvation, that he will fulfil his promises.

​You can read more at https://billygraham.org.

Hebrews 11 lists the Champions of faith but here are some of my favourite heroes of faith:

• Noah saved his family from the flood by building the ark
• Abraham and Sarah had a baby even though they were very old
• Moses led the Israelites across the Red Sea with the Egyptians in pursuit
• They marched around Jericho and the walls fell down
• David defeated Goliath
• Daniel survived being thrown into the lions' den
• Esther saved the Israelites from destruction
• Paul continued to preach the Gospel even though he was shipwrecked and imprisoned several times

All of these heroes battled the same fears, doubts and insecurities as the rest of us, but their faith in a faithful God helped them to do it afraid.

Faith takes us out of the boundaries of the natural and into the supernatural, out of the possible to the impossible.  

​Hebrews 11:33-34 says, Through their faith they defeated kingdoms. They did what was right and received what God promised. They shut the mouths of lions, stopped great fires and were saved from being killed with swords. They were weak, and yet were made strong. 

In Matthew 17:20 Jesus tells his disciples, If your faith is as big as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there.’ And the mountain will move. All things will be possible for you. Go and look in the pantry or fridge and see if you can find some mustard seeds - they're pretty tiny. God takes our tiny faith and accomplishes amazing things. He takes what is weak and makes it strong.

What is God calling you to do that is outside your comfort zone and you need to step out in faith and do?