When you listen to people who do not believe in God, if you’re not careful, they could eventually convince you to think that faith in God is an act of treason against yourself and the system of the world. Thankfully you have refused to believe the rhetoric that the people of the world speak against God. Recently I came across some quotes about faith that caught my attention. These quotes completely deny true faith and what is happening in those who have faith.
For example, when asked the question of what is faith? I found three quotes that answer that question, arguing against faith.
One person said, “If you believe something because you have evidence for it or a rational argument, that is not faith. So faith seems to be believing something despite the absence of evidence or rational argument for it.”
A famous author added his thoughts on what faith is, “It was the schoolboy who said, “’ Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”
And then a last quote says, “Faith is the absence of reason, the suppression of knowledge, and the willful denial of reality.”
After reading these quotes, it becomes clear that faith is not only wholly misunderstood without the help of the Spirit of God but also denied by those who can't see the proof of its existence. All three quotes have in common that they don't believe in the Spirit. They trust in physical proof, and it can't be true if you can't prove it rationally. It makes sense that faith is rejected when you lean on reason and knowledge to prove something is real. (But isn't that what makes God so mysterious? You cannot explain God with reason or physical evidence and do Him justice. God uses man's blindness to hide Himself from the proud.)
I also found one person who was defending the faith. He said, "Faith isn't the absence of evidence; it is what results from evidence."
Based on Hebrews 11:1, this quote is true but incomplete. As I read further through these quotes, it was clear that the evidence people seek with faith is still physical proof to prove faith is real. Even in this definition, you can still be trying to prove faith in a physical sense. But at some point, as a believer, there has to be a greater point to faith.
If we read Hebrews 11, the writer uses faith with works on the earth as evidence of the unseen. But more significant than that, the point they are making is that the unseen comes first, not the seen. If faith results from evidence, the evidence must be in the Spirit first, not on earth. Therefore faith is a word from God received in the Spirit and then manifested on earth. What made these people in Hebrews so great in faith was their ability to hear from God in the Spirit and visualize what they heard. Then it was easy to put proof of their faith in the earth as an example. The point, though, is they saw it in the Spirit. That's a faith many people do not experience.
Besides the fact that they deny God, these quotes miss it because they are trying to make faith something physical. But faith is the visualization of the unseen; it’s God’s word seen in the Spirit, which then finds its way to the seen world by putting faith to work. Faith is not about the outward; it’s about the inward. Once a person has faith, their consciousness is renewed by the word they receive, and then they act on it.
True faith is when you can visualize the workings of the Spirit and then put action to it in your life, and bring it to pass by your faithfulness to God on the earth.
Faith is not about believing in what’s not real; it believes in what is real. The difference between God and those who reject faith because of their intellect is what they believe is real. For man, the earth is real because it’s tangible, and they can prove (some) things. But for God, the Spirit is real because that’s what created the earth. That makes God more real than man and the Spirit more real than the earth. I think I’ll put my faith in God, not man; how about you?
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