Faith. It takes faith to have faith. It is a gift from God. You may have faith. Or you may have a kind of faith. Only you know what you mean when you say “faith.” There must be an object of your faith in order to say “faith.”
I have faith. I also have a faith. But there have been times when I have lost faith and no longer had faith in faith. I had placed my faith in people and things which resulted in utter disappointment, faithfully. I no longer have faith in people or things. The tough lessons in life have prevailed.
To have faith, whether in someone or something, belief must proceed it. So to believe is to have faith. You can believe in unbelief too, so it takes faith to not believe as well. Whatever it is you believe, your faith will surely lead.
I believe in God. Therefore, I have faith in God. My faith in God is because I believe in Him.
I only have faith in God our Father. He only and He alone is the object of my faith. And so, my faith will take me where He leads. To have faith in Him means I will follow Him. I have faith in Him until my journey ends. We follow what we believe because we have faith in it.
My father was a young, orphaned boy, growing up in the small town of Bloomington, Texas. He told me that he was wild, undisciplined, and had no structure in his life. During his teen years he was told he would amount to nothing and wind up in prison. At the age of sixteen he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. All the wrong he seemingly was meant for was thwarted by the Marine Corps. After twenty years of service my father retired from the Marine Corps as a Gunnery Sergeant. He was faithful to his country, faithful to the Corps, and faithful to the core. He believed. He had faith in what he believed. Once a Marine, always a Marine. My father exemplified faithfulness. He was faithful to the end.
My father followed what he believed. Belief proceeded faith. Because of his faithfulness I am here today with faith and in faith. So that:
By his faith, I can know the security of the unshaken ground I stand upon.
By his faith, I can know freedom.
By his faith, I cannot know freedom not.
By his faith, I can have life.
By his faith, I can believe.
By his faith, I can have faith.
By his faith I can have faith but not because his faith was imposed upon me. No. But rather as his heir I received the legacy of his faith in service which extended life and freedom to me in order that I can have faith, faith in God the Father. We don’t share each other’s faith in the sense that your faith becomes my faith, and mine becomes yours. No. We come to faith in God individually. By my father’s faithfulness, by my faithfulness, God continues to be faithfully extended throughout the world. We believers in God share God by our faith in Him.
We can’t begin without faith. We can’t remain without faith. We can’t end without faith. In all things, faith, or in some things faith. We are either faithful or unfaithful to whatever we have placed as the object thereof. We can exert faith just as much as we can exert unfaithfulness. So to be partially faithful is to be unfaithful. So to be fully faithful is to be faithful. We are either faithful or unfaithful. To the good and to the bad. To the right and to the wrong. For today, for tomorrow, for never, forever. But, where there is faith, there is faith.
The Word in Motion: Interactive
Who or what is the object of your faith?
How does faith look in the life of a believer?
Are you faithful?
Can you breach faith?
What is the purpose of faith?
Next devotional:
Part I
“Where there is faith: The men of old”
Hebrews 11: 1 – 40
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Photo credit by the author. Location: Lake Geneva (“Lac Leman”) in Geneva, Switzerland
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