Believing Is Seeing: Do You Have Faith?

Have you embraced the content of the gospel? Have you embraced the reality that you need forgiveness  for your sins? The reality is that there is only two destinations for the human soul, heaven or hell. Every person will die, but very few will ever live and discover their purpose. For the follower of Christ, the gospel must impact every area of their life. The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus to settle an individual’s sin debt with God has tremendous implications on a person’s life. If it doesn’t, then that person doesn’t really believe. Faith begins in the mind as a person is drawn by the Holy Spirit to go beyond just knowing about the gospel to receiving and accepting the gospel. However, this will never happen until a person is genuinely convicted about their sinfulness. Faith is a real conviction that comes from God’s revelation to man. In Romans 10:17, Paul wrote that “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Nevertheless, not everyone who hears will respond in faith to the gospel. The problem is not with the message, but with the one hearing the message. Are they willing to surrender their life? Are they willing to die to self? Are they willing to place their absolute trust in Christ for their eternal life? Are they willing to suffer for Him? Are they willing to bow their knee voluntarily to Jesus as their King and Lord? Has the Holy Spirit drawn them and brought about conviction to sin? If you understand your sinfulness before a holy God, then you are willing and able to do all the above and only then will you grasp the understanding behind Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” With faith in Christ, a person believes in everything promised for their future by Jesus and a person of faith has hope in every promise of the Bible which has occurred in the past and will occur in the future which cannot yet be seen. There is an old saying “for the unbeliever, seeing is believing; for the believer, believing is seeing.” I pray you see the difference.

Finally, Peter wrote “at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 8, 9). My friends you don’t need to see Jesus in the flesh to have full assurance of the forgiveness of the your sins and complete hope for eternal life. You should have inexpressible joy as you live for eternity and not for your temporal existence on this planet.

Faith means possessing the result of the gospel now, not later, now. Faith means having constant forgiveness as you remain in a constant posture of repentance. All there is left to do is wait patiently upon the rapture of the church or your full salvation of eternal glory.