Faith literally means trust.

Faith literally means trust. If you have faith in something you believe or trust in it. The Readers Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary defines faith as “confidence in or dependence on a person, statement or thing as trustworthy; trust.” Faith in the New Testament primarily means to trust in the statements revealed by God through scripture. Occasionally the phrase “the faith” is used to signify the believed propositional truths of the Bible. Some examples are Jude 3 “….exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith….delivered unto the saints.” In Acts 14:22 Paul is “…exhorting them [Christians] to continue in the faith.”

The best place to understand faith is in the book of Hebrews. The book's main premise is to show Jesus Christ as our hope. He also represents God’s trustworthiness to keep His promise. Hebrews 6:13 says, “For when God made [a] promise to Abraham, [God] could swear by [no one] greater, [so] he swore by [His own nature of trustworthiness].”

From Adam and Eve to Abraham, God promised to redeem man from his fallen nature. Jesus Christ was that promise. Hebrews 10:23 says, “let us hold fast the confession of our hope [i.e. Jesus Christ] that [our faith or trust] waver not; for [God] is faithful that promised.”

Hebrews 10:32 says, “The just shall live by faith.” This verse quotes Old Testament Habakkuk 2:4 where the Hebrew word for faith denotes God’s quality of trustworthiness. The author of Hebrews and Habakkuk are saying we live by the revealed scripture which claims God is trustworthy to keep his promise.

Chapter 11 of Hebrews is often called the faith chapter. Eighteen times in this chapter we have the phrase “by faith” followed by a patriarch's name who followed God at his word. When we read, “By faith Abraham believed God…” we are to understand Abraham considered God trustworthy.

The strength of faith or the ability to believe is only as strong as the source trusted in. As Christians, the Bible is our source of faith. God never intended us to have a blind faith and has provided an historical account of His actions in fulfilling His promise of salvation.

Some teach faith as a force within you to be conjured up to acquire temporal things. Faith has nothing to do with making something happen by believing hard enough. This mentality puts the individual as the source of their own faith. The Old Testament patriarchs "were still living by faith when they died" waiting to see the trustworthiness of God revealed. Martin Luther said: “….Promise and faith must necessarily go together. For without the promise there is nothing to be believed..."

Humans can only bow their knee and accept the promise of a trustworthy God. The Bible shows us what kind of God we are bowing to. We do not believe in Heaven or God because we have seen them nor because we can prove them. Biblical faith is totally dependent on a trustworthy God and Jesus Christ is evidence of God's trustworthiness. I saw a sign this weekend that said, “Faith is unlimited.” Just remember faith in and of itself is not sufficient without a personal God to have faith in.