What is Faith?

If faith is so important, how do we know what it is and whether we have it or not? The first step to identifying anything is to get a clear description of what it is. If you don’t know what faith is, you can’t identify if you have it.

Years ago I was doing some renovations on our house and a friend of mine said to me; “What you need is a thingy.” Of, course I didn't know what a ‘thingy’ was. He proceeded to describe it; “a whatsy-call-it that you push and it separates things”. You can imagine the amusement at our local hardware store when I asked them if they had a “thingy, whatsy-call-it that you push and it separates things’.

In the same way, many of us don’t have a clear understanding of what faith is. Consequently, when we are under tests and trials, we aren’t confident that we have faith. If we don’t know what faith is, we don’t know where to look, or what questions to ask to identify it.
Vines Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words defines ‘faith’ as being a ‘firm persuasion’, an ‘assurance’ or the ‘contents of our beliefs’. Put simply, your faith is what you believe, what you are assured of, what you are fully persuaded of.
This sounds simple, and it is. However, it's amazing how confused we get. Sometimes it helps to clarify things by what they are not.

Faith is not what you feel.

Faith is not what your pastor believes.

Your faith is not what your church teaches.

Faith is not even what you know the Bible teaches!

Your faith IS what you believe.

Your faith is those things of which YOU are FULLY PERSUADED.
If it’s that simple, surely we would be able to see this in the Bible? Surely, there would be recorded a number of times where ‘faith’ and beliefs are used interchangeably? Well, there is, repeatedly.
‘As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” When He entered the house, the blind men came up to Him, and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord.” Then He touched their eyes, saying, “It shall be done to you according to your faith.” Matt 9 27-29
Note that Jesus asked the blind men if they believed he was able to heal them, and then he said: “It shall be done according to your faith.” Clearly, Jesus thought that the blind men’s faith was the content of their beliefs. What they believed was their faith. If they believed Jesus could heal them, they had faith that Jesus could heal them.

Likewise: ’And Jesus answered saying to them, “Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you. ‘Mark 11:22-24 NASB
Jesus told his disciples to have ‘faith’ in God, or to have the ‘faith of God’ or ‘faith like God has faith’. Then Jesus proceeds to talk about ‘beliefs. ‘Whoever … believes, … therefore I say to you, believe’. As with Matt 9, Jesus considered the disciple's faith to be the sum of what they believed.

So, when we need to know if we have faith, we’re not to look in the cupboard of ‘What Our Church Teaches’, we can’t look in the cupboard of ‘What My Pastor Believes’ and we definitely can’t look in the cupboard of ‘How I Feel About The Situation Today!’. Because what your church teaches and what your Pastor believes and how you feel about the situation today- is not going to get you healed or get your prayers answered.
Before we pray, we need to look in the right cupboard. We need to ask ourselves, what is it that I believe about this situation? Am I fully assured and persuaded of God’s Word about this. Because what we believe about God’s Word, what we are fully persuaded of, is our faith.