Faith. We all have it. "What do you mean we all have faith? Isn't faith something for the religious and spiritual?"
Yeah, that may be what you're thinking. But I want to point out a few things about the misconstrued view of "faith". Faith, as simply described in Hebrews 11:1 is, "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see". Alright, that makes sense. So God-believing people actually have a normal definition of faith. They're not so weird after all. Well, what if you haven't read a bible, or if you have you haven't really thought about the fact that faith isn't a thing that applies just to the religious. Well, dictionary.com defines faith as, "1) confidence or trust in a person or thing... 4) belief in anything". You may now be asking yourself, "So I have faith?". Yes, yes you do. It may be in the government, in money, in people, in love, in science, in luck. Regardless of what the object of your faith is, it's something that you've knowingly put, at least, a portion of your hope and security in.
So what does faith in God look like for the Christian?
The answer to that is simple.
Personal.
A authentic Christian's faith isn't something based off of what Billy Graham believes, what your brother or sister believes, the bible stories you know from growing up in church, or even what your church believes.
An authentic Christian's faith is based off and within who Jesus IS (notice how I said is – present tense). Faith is built and faith begins in the Christian faith whenever we realize that the foundation and the only object of faith is Christ. It's not rules, it's not your belief in secondary and so forth doctrines, its not religion, its not based off if you read your bible in the morning or at night, it's not if you attend every financial peace study the church offers, nor if you like every bible verse posted to Facebook.
The strength of faith is found in the strength of its source.
Faith for the authentic Christian is a personal relationship that you have with the God who saved your soul, and that faith yields a changed life, a changed heart, changed values, and a changed idea of what having faith in something really means.
If you're a cosmetic christian, you may be offended and say "I have faith! I believe in Jesus!" Sure, you may believe in him in your head, but do you really have faith in him in your heart? Cause I'm not talking about the basics, like "Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so." Would you really want to have faith in something or someone without understanding who they are or what they're about? Uh no. That's scary. How do you know the object of your faith is trustworthy with your entire being? Cause that's what you're doing isn't it? Entrusting yourself to it?
Authentic Christian faith hits you in the deepest parts of your heart and weaves its way into every fiber of your being. In authentic Christian faith darkness, over the course of life, is replaced with light. Faith in something that's worth believing in will challenge your values, your thoughts, your motives, your lifestyle – it will challenge YOU.
So, let me ask you. You have faith. What do you have faith in?