by Roel Velema
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebr. 11:1, KJV).
Substance means ‘essence, meaning, (well-grounded) assurance, content, solidity, reality or body’. The light of the sun is substantial and ‘contains’ everything for life to exist as ‘reality’ on this earth. Likewise faith makes things real. Darkness has no substance, because it has no content. Darkness is a parasite.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen. To it the unsubstantial becomes substantial, and aspiration becomes realization. So faith is EVIDENCE! We live in this ‘faith-evidence’. Faith starts in desire.
Sense-knowledge is not faith. The just shall live by faith. The life we now live in the flesh is lived by the faith OF the Son of God, i.e. Christ. As believers on Christ we are in ‘union-life’ with Christ. Christ is our life, our very life. And as He is in this world NOW so are we. Faith is the language of Christ in us as us.
With living faith comes actual inner knowledge. We see and know by the inner eye and in the inner mind. By faith we possess our possessions in the obedience of faith. Romans 6 tells us to know, to reckon on the fact of our union with Him.
Faith is believing the facts offered. Then, by our word of faith, we embrace these facts as our own personal truth. We affirm and God confirms these facts in us as living realities. What we embrace then embraces us in the consciousness of an overwhelming reality. Through this reality we love Him more than anyone else, without ever having seen Him. Faith is not faith until it produces its substance, its reality. When we get the substance, we have it in our spirit, as an inner fact. In climbing a mountain we may distinguish between a climbing faith and a summit faith, embracing and being embraced. However it’s in being embraced that we got the substance.
Faith is the key. Faith produces facts. BY FAITH WE FIND ALL THE ANSWERS GOD HAS FOR US, not by starting to adapt behavior.
Remember, you have all the answers at hand. He as us is in the obedience of faith is the Answer. Who else?
