Faith As a Guiding Principle
As I unpack faith in my own life, for it to become the guiding principle for me, I need to understand what it is and is not. First, faith is not positive thinking. The idea here is I can will something into becoming reality by “faith” or positive thinking. If I pray hard enough about something I can make it happen. That is not faith. That is a presumption. I can pray from now until I die for God to make me the richest person in the world but that does not mean I can will that into happening. I can pray daily that I never get cancer but that does not mean I will never get cancer.
Quite the opposite is true. The Bible tells us we will have many crosses to bear in this life. Most of us have already carried a few. We exercise faith when we pick up those crosses of life and follow Jesus. Faith is the assurance that even in the valleys of life, Jesus will keep His promises to us. He will not leave us or forsake us. I may not “feel” His presence, but I am “certain” of His presence.
Faith produces a certainty in our lives regarding the things we do not see but hope for. It is the ability to take God at His word and obey it, despite the consequences. Faith changes people. Faith changes our destiny.
“Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see.” Hebrews 11:1 NLT
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