“Faith is substance.”

A thought by James MacDonald (2015-06-18) from his book, Lord, Change My Attitude: Before It's Too Late (p. 191). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title of the book to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

So what is faith exactly? Well the writer of Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1 (NKJV) says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” There is the word substance. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for.”

James clarifies this thought by saying, “We practice such faith often in the physical world. Pick up the phone and call a department store to place an order, and they’ll ask for your credit card number. Then they’ll probably mail you a receipt. You don’t have the product; you only have a receipt. But with it in hand, you wait confidently for the product you ordered to come. That receipt in hand— that’s the substance that you hold on to while you wait for the thing that you’ve ordered.”

He later says, “Now the spiritual world operates under similar principles. I take a need before God in prayer. My faith, my active confidence in God, is the thing that I hold on to while I wait to see how the Lord is going to answer what I’ve brought before Him. If I have a painful circumstance in my life and I’m asking God to change that or to change me, my faith is the substance that I hold while I wait upon God to do the things that I’ve asked Him to do. So faith is substance.”

For some it is fear that they hold on to. Oh I know what I hope for is never going to happen. I never get what I hope for. So what are you holding on to to get you through the realities of life? Hebrews 11:1 in the New Living Translation says, “Faith is the confidence that what we hoped for will actually happen.”

So are you actively confidence in God that what you hope for will actually happen?

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