Beth Ann Hardin, President & Editor
"God's Word, God's Will, God's Way"
Now FAITH IS…..
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Volumes have been written based on this single sentence recorded in Hebrews 11:1. “Aman” is the Hebrew and Aramaic word for faith, and is translated: believe, assurance or sure. “Pistis”  is the Greek word for faith and can be translated faith, assurance, believe, belief, and fidelity.
Faith is the ability to see the unseen, know the unknown and make something from nothing. Faith comes from God, and a man must have faith to believe in God. There are people who seemingly cannot or will not believe that there is a God, or that they have any faith.
In Romans 12:3 Paul says: “as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith” but he also wrote in  Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” A person cannot conjure up faith, it must come from God, and be founded on His Word.
In II Thessalonians 3:2 Paul asked for prayer to be delivered “from unreasonable and wicked men; for all men have not faith.” So, unless people hear that there is a God, and believe it by faith they cannot be saved. I have known people who were in this category. They simply had no “faith” and were generally self-absorbed people, who could be very cruel and heartless to others.
A person can go through life in total spiritual darkness with their hearts hardened and set only on earthly and personal pursuits, and never come to “faith in God.”  Religious tradition and church attendance, even knowledge “of” God, does not insure salvation. Only an acceptance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and praying to God in faith can give us peace with God and forgiveness of sins.
It is not God’s fault that some do not come to faith, for He has given us the full Word of God. He has sent missionaries to every tribe and nation, and has even given visions and dreams to those in remote areas where man cannot go. If we refuse to believe, the fault lies with us. If we refuse to give the Gospel to those we meet, we are robbing them of a chance to receive His Promise of Salvation. The printed page, electronic media and widespread travel in our day have truly taken the message into the entire earth in the past three centuries. Faith in God is the most vital message today!
Faith is substance, or  existence, is “that which stands or exists” according to Webster.
Most people have trouble believing in something they cannot see, hear, feel, taste or smell. People who have never physically sensed  God may deny His existence. An atheist teacher tried to make his point that God does not exist by asking his students: “have you ever seen Him?” One student replied “No, but have you ever seen your brain?”
Substance of God’s existence comes through His gift of faith. If you do not have it, try asking God to give you faith to believe. He will never fail to answer this prayer! It is also proper for Christians to ask God to increase our faith....He has plenty and He wants you to have Faith!
Through faith the worlds were created, man was formed and our universe came into being. God’s Word of faith can cause whatever is needed to materialize, when it is His will.
Jesus taught the disciples that even a small amount of faith is sufficient to “say to this sycamore tree, be thou  plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea, and it should obey you.” Luke 17:6. Faith when used in God’s will is the most powerful force in Heaven and Earth. By faith we have witnessed healing, deliverance from drugs, finances increased and many other answers to prayer.
We all need to grow in faith and we can do it by reading God’s Word, for faith comes by His Word!
Faith is the evidence of things not seen. By our faith we can experience things which are not visible to the natural eye. When God promises us protection, the supply of natural needs, or salvation and healing, we can be sure that the evidence of these things will materialize, by faith.
In a court room the attorneys must present “evidence” to convict or prove the innocence of an accused person. A student must produce evidence in class that they have studied a subject. On the job an employee must produce evidence that they have completed a task. Faith is our evidence.
“For by it (faith) the elders (patriarchs) received a good report.” We will read this list of elders as we advance in the study, showing that it was their God given faith that gave them the ability to experience the mighty works and miraculous acts which accompanied their lives. These “elders” were people like you and me who believed God and received His great promises in their daily lives.
“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” vs. 3.
The word framed in the Greek is: katartizo which means to complete or perfect.
When God was ready to create this universe and all of the “worlds” out there, He Spoke! His Words created these mysteriously and wonderfully made planets, starts, suns and moons. Planet earth was perfected for the exact purpose of housing, feeding and supporting human life.
Think about these wise words from A. Cressy Morrison, former president of the New York Academy of Sciences, in his article: “Seven reasons Why a Scientist Believes in God,” from the book: Man Does Not Stand Alone:  “By unwavering mathematical law we can prove that our universe was designed and executed by a great engineering intelligence. Suppose you put ten pennies, marked from one to ten, into your pocket and give them a good shuffle. Now try to take them out in sequence from one to ten, putting back the coin each time and shaking  them all again. Mathematically we know that your chance of first drawing number one is one to ten; of drawing one and two kin succession, one to 100; of drawing one, two and three in succession, one in a thousand, and so on; your change of drawing them all, from number one to number ten in succession would reach the un believable figure of one chance in ten billion.”
“By the same reasoning, so many exacting conditions are necessary for life on the earth that they could not possibly exist in proper relationship by chance. The earth rotates on its axis one thousand miles an hour; if it turned at one hundred miles and hour, our days and nights would be ten times as long as now, and the hot sun would then burn up our vegetation each long day while in the long night any surviving sprout would freeze.”
“Again, the sun, source of our life, has a surface temperature of 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and our earth is just far enough away so that this “eternal fire” warms us just enough and not too much! If the sun gave off only one half its present radiation, we would freeze and if it gave half as much more, we would roast.”
“The slant of the earth, tilted at an angle of 23 degrees, gives us our seasons; if it had not been so tilted, vapors from the ocean would move north and south, piling up for us continents of ice. If our moon was, say, only 50,000 miles away instead of its actual distance, our tides would be so enormous that twice a day all continents would be submerged; even the mountains would soon be eroded away. If the crust of the earth had been only ten feet thicker there would be no oxygen, without which animal life must die. Had the ocean been a few feet deeper. Carbon dioxide and oxygen would have been absorbed and no vegetable life could exist. Or if our atmosphere had been much thinner, some of the meteors, now burned in space by the millions every day, would be striking all parts of the earth, setting fires everywhere.” “Because of these, and a host of other examples, there is no one chance in millions that life on our planet is an accident.”
Isn’t that fascinating? I could quote many writings, but I will leave it to you to find books and other articles, which prove that our Intelligent God, designed our fascinating earth, plants, animals, and most wonderful, our bodies! Every organ in our body is utterly beyond human comprehension or duplication. God made them all by His Faith. Paul tells us: “Have faith in God!” There is no limit to us as “sons of God” with the power of FAITH! Next Month, The Faith of Abel.           Beth Ann Hardin, Editor




Devotional Letter for March, 2010