Hebrews 11:1 - Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
“Faith is believing what you know ain’t so” - Mark Twain
When anyone mentions the word faith, they most commonly think of religion. Ask most Christians and about any atheist what the word “faith” means and you will most often get the word “belief” or “belief in what you can’t prove”, similar to Mark Twain’s pronouncement.
If you go back to the word’s roots you have to first go back to the original language of the bible. Muslims believe that the Koran must be read in the original language or not at all, and Christians have most certainly had their understanding of the Bible twisted by not demanding the same thing.
Now the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek. The word “faith” used in the New Testament is translated from the Greek “pi’stis” and translates as a noun-verb hybrid; which is not adequately conveyed by the English noun. Pi’stis in the New Testament context is a physical action, based upon a mental belief and sustained with confidence. Belief, in this context is non-synonymous with faith because, belief primarily conveys the mental action. The belief and resulting action of confidence, trust, and/or firm persuasion, more accurately portrays the real meaning of the word. In a nonreligious sense, this connotation is still held accurately when you state “I have faith in that person.”
“Faith” when used in the Bible should be substituted by the word “Trust”. So what is trust? Trust is knowledge and experience born from consistent action. You can neither trust a person who you do not know nor can you trust a person who behaves erratically. Trust is expectation and confidence. From past evidence that flipping a light switch turns on a lightbulb, you can have the full expectation that it will work the next time even know you do not have absolute certainty. Before you turn on a light switch you do not know if the bulb is burnt out, if the power to your house is working or not, or that a pet has not chewed through the power cord, but you have full expectation that lightbulb will turn on and will be surprised if it does not.
Religious belief is founded on this identical principle and those who misrepresent it do a tremendous disservice. You can trust in God to take care of you because He never fails, ever. This is not to say that He removes every obstacle from your path and makes life a carefree joy ride, but neither do parents rush around managing every aspect of their child’s lives and protect a child from every possible bit of unhappiness. The child would resent this and with good reason. God will never allow more problems to occur to someone who puts total trust in Him then that person can handle.
Of course the difficulty here is for non-Christians or new Christians to understand is the difference between selfish undertaking and doing what God wants them to do. Selfish, blind, and foolish choices quite often put people in this world into situations they can not handle and mouthing platitudes about their belief or faith will do nothing to save them from the consequences of their own actions. The Bible and most literature is filled with examples of this, examples most often dismissed because in hindsight or in full knowledge foolish choices are easier to see.
How can you judge if yours or others actions are following God’s desires? This world operates with a painful overlapping of two diametrically opposed, absolutely contradictory philosophies. The standards of these two philosophies are outlined in the first few chapters of the book of Genesis and every convoluted system of belief on this planet can be traced to one or the other. The first is a trust of others and a trust in God. All cooperative, mutually beneficial systems from as diverse ideas such as capitalism, law enforcement, humanitarianism, traditional religion, etc. are all based on the principle of trust in others and end up simultaneously benefiting both oneself and mankind.
The other philosophical system when simplified down to its basic roots is hedonism, the search for power and control of one’s own limited life at the expense of others for the short span of time between now and death. All social systems and behaviors which attempt to control others such as slavery, dictatorships, fascism, communism, socialism, or any system which elevates some people over others, or rewards some at others’ expense no matter what name or terminology is given falls into this category. These systems when implemented on large-scale terms always crumble if they are not supported from outside means, after causing destruction and misery.
What proof is there of God’s existence and His ability to help us? To give only one answer, examine the question, ‘What can change the nature of a person?’ Ask an alcoholic, a smoker, a gambler, or anyone with any bad habits how they can change their habits by themselves. Now put a Christian and a non-Christian in one place and see if you can tell them apart.
Galations 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
Interpreting this verse: “The results (fruit) of being a Christian filled with God’s Spirit is to have a personality expressing love, joy, calmness (peace), patience (long-suffering), gentleness, goodness, trust (faith), humility (meekness), moderation (temperance): this person does not worry about law or legalism because they have no desire to break any law or hurt other people.”
This type of character is completely unnatural. Any type of Christianity which does not result in this type of changed character is a fraud.