“Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
– Hebrews 11:1
Oh, I love this definition of faith. It’s so different, I think, than many people think about faith. I think a lot of people when they think about faith, it’s like stepping out, this blind leap into the dark, or this vague hope, or maybe wishful thinking. So, “I have faith in this and I hope it’s actually going to happen,” but that’s not the way the Bible talks about faith.
God has not called us to a blind leap into the dark, but to bank our lives on the One who is dependable and faithful.
Listen to the words in Hebrews 11:1. Faith is the assurance, like when you have assurance of something. This is faith, assurance of things hoped for. So it’s not like, “I hope my team is going to win,” but you don’t know if it’s really going to happen, or “I hope this or that is going to happen,” when you don’t really know if it will. This is assurance. You know that what you have hoped for will happen and you have conviction, like conviction of things not seen. You know that that which you don’t see is real and true.
God Wants Us To Bank Our Lives On The Dependable And Faithful
This is the kind of faith that God has called us to. Not some blind leap into the dark, but banking our lives on he who is most dependable and most faithful, the eternal God of the universe who has given us his word, who has given us his promises, who has come to us, who in the flesh has lived a perfect life, died on a cross and risen from the dead. Faith in Christ is the most sure foundation for your life. Who else has conquered death? Faith in God who has created the world, where else would you put your hope? Oh, see the beauty of faith. See the wonder of faith and see the assurance and conviction of faith that then drives every facet of our lives. Live today by faith.
This is the way Paul describes the Christian life in Galatians 2:20. “I have been crucified with Christ. I no longer live. Christ lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” In other words, I gladly put my faith in Jesus as I know he loves me. He has given his life for me. That’s what the rest of Hebrews chapter 11 talks about is those who have trusted in God and God has shown himself faithful to them.
Hebrews 11:1 Wants Us To Live By Faith In God
So, God, we pray that today you would help us to live by faith. God, help me to live by faith today, to live with assurance and conviction, confidence in you and your word. God, I just pray this over every single person who is listening to this right now. I don’t know all that they’re walking through. I imagine some are walking through some hard times. Imagine some are even struggling with doubts. And God, I just pray that you would give them assurance of what they’ve hoped for and conviction of things unseen.
Though we cannot see you, we know you. We believe in you, not like a blind leap into the dark. We believe in you because you have given us so much reason to believe in you. You have loved us, created us, cared for us. You’ve created the world and all of its beauty around us. And You have come into this world in our fallen state and you have lived among us. You have died for us. You have risen from the grave in victory over death. So You have made relationship with you possible. So we gladly, today we gladly live by faith in you. Help us to live by faith in you.
And in this, God, I’m just compelled not even to pray that we would grow in faith, but that we would grow in our understanding of your faithfulness, that we would grow in our understanding of who you are. And then as a result of our deeper understanding of who you are, that we would, yes, just as we see in this hall of faith in Hebrews chapter 11, that we would live with assurance of things hoped for and conviction of things not seen. May our Christian life today be described as living by faith in the son of God who loved us and gave himself for us. In his name, in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
