Matthew Nath – Author

Faith, what is it?

“And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.”

Matthew 13:58

This verse has always scared me.  The idea that Jesus, while he was living and walking this Earth, did not do miracles because the community lacked faith.  I’ve dreaded living in a community like that and I thank God every day for bringing me to a community where I’ve seen many miracles.  But I’ve grown to appreciate this cautionary verse from Matthew, an apostle of Christ.  What is he trying to tell us?  What does a lack of faith mean?

As I’ve grown closer to Christ, faith is a word whose meaning has transformed.  So much so that I feel like my misunderstanding of this word was a significant part of what allowed me to drift away from Christ’s teachings when I was younger.  But it can be difficult to break down a word with so much complexity.  I think the best place to start is with a simple definition.

A quick web search on my phone tells me faith is: “complete trust or confidence in someone or something,” and/or: “strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof.”  I find these very interesting, especially the second one.  The second part of the answer undermines the very word itself.  “Rather than proof,” sounds to me like: “Rather than what you can demonstrate to US.”  But how am I supposed to demonstrate my belief in a doctrine?  Especially to an establishment based around a materialistic science that disregards my spiritual experiences as untrue because they can’t be proven.  The first definition is better, but still feels incomplete.

When I was growing up, faith always felt like a true or false test.  Jesus Christ died on the cross to defeat sin and death? True.  He is one aspect of the triune God who rules over all creation? True.  Growing up, just believing that, giving my assent to those statements, felt like enough.  I got the test right, now I was good with God, right?  I could go about my business doing the things I wanted to do and trusting the rest to faith.  But just getting that test right cannot be enough.  We see several stories throughout the gospel accounts of Christ delivering people from demonic possession, and we see the demons recognize Christ as the Son of God.  They would pass the test, but I don’t think any of us would believe the demons have faith.

So if there is more to faith, what is it?  My Bible has 236 mentions of the word faith throughout the entire Bible.  We see Christ and the apostles healing people because of their faith (Matthew 8:10, Luke 7:50, Acts 14:9).  We also see Christ criticizing others for their lack of faith, even the apostles (Luke 8:25, Mark 4:40).  We are warned many will turn away from the faith, we see people filled with faith, we see people becoming obedient to the faith.  I see so many uses in many different capacities.  One thing was for sure, it seemed to me to be far more than just a passing assent that Jesus is your savior.

One thing I’ve found helpful came from Father Stephen De Young on his Whole Counsel of God YouTube channel and Podcast.  He often translates “faith” as “faithfulness,” which helps turn it from a state of mind to a state of being.  Faith becomes something you demonstrate in practice instead of a set of things you believe.  Our verse becomes ““And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faithfulness.”    That makes more sense to me.  I’ve seen communities that lack faithfulness and I try to thank God every day for the faithful community that I’ve been able to be a part of.  But am I doing my part to build that faithfulness?  Do I have faith?  Let’s look at that first definition again: “complete trust or confidence in someone or something,”

What does it mean to have complete trust or confidence in someone?  As professing Christians, we are proclaiming that we have faith in Christ.  We have complete confidence and trust in Him.  That trust should form the foundation for the way we live.  To live with faith is to live faithfully, working to follow Christ as we conform our lives to be more like Him.

So, I want to you to genuinely ponder something.  Pray and ask the Spirit to answer with you; “Am I living faithfully?”  If someone looked at your life from the outside, would they know that you worship Christ?  Faithful living is active, not passive.  We should try to see everyone we cross paths with the way Christ would see them and share the fruits of the spirit God has bestowed on us with as many people as we can.  And the more often we are able to do that, the more faithfully we are able to live, the more Christ will be able to use us to be His hands in this cold, dark world.