“Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.” 

The above definition of faith is very popular, not only in the church, but also in the world and in general context means that to have faith is to believe in what you want and expect what you desire. I have learnt that if the devil is preaching the same thing as the church, there defiantly must be something for him in the doctrine. This means we have not understood God’s ways enough to see the foundation of error from which the devil’s operations benefit from in the doctrine.

The word “faith” comes from the same root as “faithful”. Thus to have faith is to claim and practice allegiance to something or someone; it is not faith to betray your God in the course of getting what you want. But for you not to betray your God, you must know His provision of liberty and grace towards you, thus;

“Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God”.

Faith denotes that we embrace the provision of God’s grace and avoid betraying Him by desiring such provision that are not made available to us nor allowed us by Him.

On the first instance, faith has a foundation of relationship; for you to be faithful there must have been some level of relationship with God established by covenant. If there is no covenant relationship, there is no faith. If there is no covenant establishing a relationship of divine provision or healing between me and God, it would not be faith if I believed God for divine provision or healing. If I did so without the covenant relationship, I would be guilty of idolatry; believing in a god of my own imagination, the god that will give me what I want rather than what God wants for me. God hates this; Ezekiel 13:7 & 8;

“When any Israelite or any alien living in Israel separates himself form me and sets up  idols in his heart and puts a wicked stumbling- block before his face and goes to a prophet to enquire of me, I the LORD will answer him myself. I will set my face against that man and make him an example and a byword. I will cut him off from my people. Then you will know that I am God”

What being cut off means is, when it is time for God to give blessings to His people, He would pass such people by; if I set an idol of divine provision up in my heart, when it is time for God’s divine provision, He will pass me by.

Faith also denotes trusting God to do what He promised to do. This means, as long as we do our part of the contract, we must trust that God will do His, thus;

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen”.

Thirdly, faith denotes embracing the provision of His grace. So many people do not get their miracle simply because they despise the vessel of His grace; I am talking about ministers and ministries. If you despise the vessel or method through which God has chosen to extend His grace towards you, you despise the wisdom of God who gave that grace. Remember the people at Jesus’ hometown; they missed their day of visitation simply because they were too familiar with Jesus; the Pharisees missed it because they had an idea of what a messiah should be like and Jesus was not like that, but the philistine woman did not; Jesus called her a dog but she was not “offended” (thrown off the edge of tolerance), she embraced the provision of God’s grace though he insulted her and she received her miracle. 2Chronicles 20: 20c;

“Listen to me Judah and people of Jerusalem! Have faith in the LORD your God and you will be upheld; have faith in His prophets and you will be successful”.

Faith finally means to refuse to take any provision outside what has been allowed for by God; many Christians are turning to witchcraft and new age movements for solutions for life’s problems. They take bribes, they lie, they cheat, they are vengeful and so on, fully knowing that these things are not allowed by God; even now there are many ministers performing lying wonders in the church; so many churches are now justifying homosexuality and adultery, corruption, manipulation, and the likes in the name of faith. Wherever such is done, it is occultism; the bible says in Deuteronomy 29: 18 – 20;

“Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison. When such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself and therefore thinks, ‘I will be safe even though I persist in going my own way’. This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry. The LORD will never be willing to forgive him; His wrath and zeal will burn against that man.”

We should take the lesson from the three Hebrew boys in Daniel: 16 – 18 who said, “we know God can save us, but even if He does not, we will not betray Him; even for our lives sake”.