Faith Fact

“True faith is not not an idea, but an inspirational influence!”

We've been discussing the topic of Faith for the past few weeks. In today's episode, we are going to fulfill Destiny Live mission of Empowering your life by sharing with you some in-depth insight into what the subject of Faith meant to Christ.

To begin, we'll first need to realize a little bit about Christ Himself. We first need to realize that Jesus’ world was that of first-century Judaism, a period critical to the history of both Christians and Jews. For the past four decades, Scholars have compared Jesus’ teachings to his contemporaries seeing that his teaching's were brilliantly built upon the thinking of his time and and Jewish culture, which has brought it to a new level.

A realization has been taking place among Christians that when we listen to his teachings within their Jewish context, we gain a fuller, deeper understanding of his message. How? From a strong link to archaeological findings and the discovery of ancient texts in the past century, especially the Dead Sea Scrolls. These new sources of data have vastly increased scholars’ ability to reconstruct Jesus’ Second Temple Jewish context, and hold great potential for shedding light on the setting of his ministry.

This is even more true when it comes to the understanding of Faith. First let's look at the very word itself. In Greek, the word for Faith is Pisti [πίστη], roughly translated means belief, firm persuasion, assurance, firm conviction, or faithfulness. Now, this is not where the word Faith originated from. The true origin's, or etymology, of this Greek word Pisti actually comes from a unique Hebrew word known as Emunah [אֱמוּנָה].

Now why is this so important? Because the word in Hebrew for Faith, Emunah, when translated has the basic connotation of faithfulness, determined persistence, and unyielding fidelity. Or to say this another way, Faith is an insistent unwavering devotion to see something through or finished as determined by someone. Here is an example. Let's say I made a promise to help you move. Now in Hebrew, even something as simply as me saying that I am going to help you move is about Faith!

The moment I made the decision to make a promise of aiding you in your time of need, I am now responsible to be faithful in keeping my word. And the only way I can accomplish this is to be insistent or determined to see this through all the way. Now let's take this understanding and connect it to God's Word. In the Book of Isaiah, God said something powerful to his people.

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." [Isaiah 41:10]

God states that His followers should not be afraid because He is God and He is with them. He then goes on to explain what this means - "I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." You see that God being with his people is proven and supported by His actions or deeds. The faith in this is not simply believing or having some kind of internal disposition or attitude towards it. The faith in Isaiah 41:10 comes from God's Faithfulness in Him Strengthening and helping them, by him upholding or sustaining them with his righteous right hand!

Now let's turn this idea of faith towards us. When we say we have Faith, shouldn't have the same meaning and purpose for us as it did for Jesus? Well, for Jesus it was in-fact this Hebrew word Emunah. Take the incident recorded in Luke 8:25 where Jesus says something very powerful, like a hit in the gut to his disciples.

""Where is your faith?" he asked his disciples. In fear and amazement they asked one another, "Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him." [Luke 8:25]

Wow! Where is your faith? The whole idea of Christ question is answered at the end of this passage where he says, "He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him." The whole idea of faith for Christ is in obedience, its about having a dedicated intent of following through with an action or deed. Ok, so what action or deed?

Well to help out, first we need to realize that the Hebrew word for Obey is: shama (שָׁמַע). It means to hear, to listen, to give attention, to understand, to submit to, and to obey. Let's see an example of this word being used by Jesus. In Matthew 13, Jesus speaks to a crowd of people in what was known as a Parable. So he talks about a farmer going out sowing seed.

His disciples then ask Jesus, "Why do you speak to the people in Parables." Look at what Jesus says, "Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand." [Mathew 13:13]

WHAT!? Ok, so this statement here by Jesus is what is known as a Hebraism, which basically is an idiom or expression. We see Jesus doing this all throughout His teachings and interactions with people. Especially when he uses Parables. What it does is conjures up an image of people having the means to hear with their ears or having the ability to see with their eyes.

To simply put it, Jesus is telling them that they have no excuse! You can't say I can't hear you when you have the ability to hear sound. You can't say that I cannot see what you are doing when you have 20-20 vision with your eyes. So what does this have to do with Faith? When we understand that the Hebrew word for Obey Shama mean to Hear, that means to Hear also means to Obey. So when Jesus tells them they have the ability to see and to hear but are not seeing nor hearing, he is simply saying that we have the ability to Obey, but are not obeying.

When we say that we have Faith, the question Christs asks is, "Then are you Faithful?" Jesus really isn't interested in my ideal or belief about God in the sense of some internal disposition I have towards him. Christ is interested in knowing whether or not I am going to follow through in full integrity with what I am responsible for in my relationship with Him and God.

Here is the best way I can show you fully what I mean here. When I married my wife, I said some very important words. We know these as our "Marriage Vows." I vowed to love here, uphold, support, strengthen her. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health. This means I have made a dedicated, determined decision to faithfully love my wife, not by just saying to her the words, "I love you," but by showing her in my actions, my deeds, and yes, as well as with my words, that I do truly love her!

I personally believe that this one simple idea of faithful dedication is why there are so many relationship problems. When we make a dedicated decision to be someone's friend, partner, father, mother, or even employee or employer. We have deeds or a better way to say it, our integrity to uphold. We can say I love you to our partner all day long for 365-days out of the year.

But if we do not show them the love we have through action, through deed, with integrity. It doesn't matter how many time we say the word, I love you, they will never truly believe it! So, to end today's episode, I have a task for you. I want you to go and find One, just one commandment in the Old Testament, that would relate to you and your life today and practice it. Memorize it if you have to in order to remember it. Research its tru meaning to fully understand it. Then, put that commandment into action.

Make it a living part of your daily life. Let others see you fulfilling that commandment of Gods with integrity. You may discover that your life will in fact truly change and transform before your eyes. Why? Because you've just Empowered you life!

Join our newest group entitled "Empowered" and take that next step!