Faith

God's Word tells us that the "the just" shall live by faith. [Rom.1:17]and Hab.2:4. But we must know, who are the just. According to Rom.10:9/10 we are justified when we believe with our heart that Jesus is Lord and confess it with our mouth. Do you qualify under this condition? Then the next question is ; what is faith?
Also on this, The Lord gives us a clear definition."Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen".[Heb.11:1]. The NIV translate it like this : Faith is being sure of things hoped for and certain of what we do not see"
The next thing that we as believers need to know is, how do we obtain this faith? Well our Lord tells the brethren that He has given each one the measure of faith.[Rom.12:3] In addition Rom.10:17 says;
'faith cometh by hearing and hearing the Word of God". Therefore we should realize that we can not work up faith by ourselves.It has to come from God.
Faith is an absolute nessecity for a Christian. Heb.11;6 tells us
that without faith it is impossible to please God. Do you want to please God?. I sure hope so ! We have to use our measure of faith knowing that God has given it to us. If you feel weak in your faith, you can ask the Lord to increase it. The father of the demoniac son and the Apostles did ask for an increased Faith. And the Lord Honored it .
Also, we should exersize our measure of faith so that it can grow and get stronger. It will atrophy if we do not exersize it.When the apostles did ask Jesus how to do the works of God, Jesus answer was; ' This is the work of God , that you believe in Him who He has send".[John6:28]. It is our fundamental duty to exersize our faith
daily.We can not receive anything from the Lord without faith.[James1:6/7]
Jesus told us to have faith in God. All major bible translations say faith IN God because the Greek grammar requires the Greek Word pivstin to be translated as IN when it points to a subject. Other wise it can be translated as OF. This according to Greek language scholars.
However, some welknown radio and TV evangelists seem to have different bibles and teach that we should have the faith OF God. Then they base a whole false doctrine on this mysterious force called faith , which even God had to have in order to create every thing. They ignore the fact that God is all powerfull and sovereign and is the GIVER of faith.He does not need faith Himself !But they insist that when we do have this mysterious faith OF God, we can do much what God is doing ! The result of this teaching is that our God is brought down to the human level and mens capacity is glorified. It hurts the idea that God is all powerfull and completely sovereign. He is the GIVER OF FAITH and does not need it Himself !
God list faith in Gal.5:22 as part of the 7 fruits of the Spirit, but also as one of the 9 gifts of the Spirit in 1Cor.12:9.
I gather from this that as a fruit it starts small and must grow in maturity over time. There is no thing like instant fruit ! As a gift of faith, He is indicating that He make spurts of extra faith available when needed sometimes when He wants to use believers for a miracle.
To end this meditation on faith, remember and make sure to be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the Law, but that which is through the Faith of Christ, the righteous which is of God by faith.[Phil.3:9]
Therefore being justified by Faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. That you may have this peace in abundance is my prayer. Johannes Weiss