(Ver 1.3)  This is Part 2 in a series of lessons on understanding the basic concepts of faith found in the Bible.   In the first lesson I gave you the overview of the origin of faith and how that God used faith to create the world; so therefore I taught you that faith was not a new concept found only in the New Testament.  I showed you conclusive scriptures from Hebrews 11 that described Old Testament faith examples even though God never emphasized or taught this to be a requirement.  In reading Hebrews 11 you can clearly see that there were many people included in the Bible because of their faith.   I told you that Faith is a rudimentary subject of Bible theology which is foundational to being a real Christian.  I also showed you that faith was an essential element to become saved.  I then taught you that “Salvation” is a word than means to make whole the spirit, the soul and the body.  We have not yet fully defined what faith is, where it comes from or how it works, but we will eventually get there just probably not today.   Today I want to talk about faith being the critical factor for anything that you receive from God.   I want to reemphasize the importance of you having faith so that you can begin to understand why you need it.  This of course means that you must understand that just because God has given you something like salvation for free, that you must do something to receive it.  There are many Christians who do not understand that concept who have obviously never had anything in the world given to them.    However, in the Bible you can read story after story of how God gave man something by His grace and how that man was required to receive it by his faith.  What we see is a spiritual partnership being established between God and man.  God is trying to give you something by His grace and teach you how to receive it by your faith.  If you have not read from the beginning of this series I would highly recommend that you go and start reading with “Part 1”.  Otherwise turn to your Bible and read with me:

Mat 9:2  And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.

Here in this story of the lame man is revealed a lot of profound spiritual truths.  Jesus is teaching a large group of people in a house that will not permit the lame man to get to Jesus.  So the lame man’s friends take him onto the roof top and they cut a large hole in the roof so that they can lower him down to Jesus.  The Bible says something very amazing here and if you are not careful you miss it.  The Bible tells us that Jesus saw their faith; the faith of the friends to help and the faith of the lame man to get up on top of the roof to get to Jesus.  This revelation clearly tells us that faith is visible and observable externally in our actions.  You need to remember that as we go through this lesson on Bible faith.  The next thing you need to take note of is that faith is the only thing that Jesus observed, so it must have been a very important part of determining if this man would get healed or not.  Do you see anything else mentioned in this verse?  Why can’t people just read scriptures and see what they say?   There are certainly other things to learn in this verse, but I will skip them to move on with our subject of faith today and give you another example of Jesus and the faith of people to receive:

Mat 9:22  But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour.

Here in this chapter of Matthew is the woman with the issue of blood who has been sick for many years.  But the Bible says that she pressed through the crowd in order to touch Jesus and she got healed.   Nowhere does it say that Jesus knew this was going to happen or that He caused it to happen.  So even though it was God’s power that healed the woman Jesus reveals to us the determining factor that caused it to occur.  Jesus makes another statement that is essential to our subject today.  Jesus turns to the woman and tells her that it was “her faith” that made her whole.    “Made whole” is the Greek word “sozo” and this is the same word translated as “saved”.  So Jesus clearly tells us again that faith was a determining factor for her salvation.  What we can observe from this story is her faith was set in motion by her actions and the two of these caused her to become healed.  You can clearly see that in the context of this story that the disciples say the crowd was touching Jesus on every side.  But, the Bible does not say that any of them got healed.  So it was not because she touched Jesus like the others did that got her healed.  It was because she touched Jesus in faith that caused the healing to come from Jesus.  Of course it was the power of God that was on Jesus that healed her, but it was received by her faith and that is how Bible faith works.  It is a joint partnership between God’s grace and man’s faith.   Let’s look at another example of this in the Bible:

Mat 15:28  Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy  faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

Here is another example of a verse that Jesus directly mentions a woman’s faith to be the key factor of her receiving her daughter’s salvation and deliverance.  Jesus does not mention anything else, so I conclude that this is the only reason that she got her answer from Jesus.  Why was Jesus so obsessed with only faith?  Why didn’t Jesus ever say anything else?  Jesus never looked at anyone and told them “It was my power that healed you” as most confused Christian in the world think.  You need to understand that faith is being emphasized more than anything else and that this is by God’s design and purpose to teach you that faith is the important part to learn about.  There are many Christian who believe that God has the power to heal, but do not understand how to get God’s healing power to work for them.  They want to pray and leave it all up to God and that is not what we find in the Bible that actually happens in the majority of the cases being presented to us as examples:

Mar 10:52  And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.

This is now the fourth example found in the Bible of a blind man who Jesus said “his faith” made him whole, saved him, healed him and delivered him from blindness.  Jesus never took the credit for it being His power alone.  In fact Jesus never mentions His power as being a factor to whether people got healed ever.  Again we see the same Greek word being translated as “made whole” which is later used for our salvation.  Therefore we understand again that it is our faith that is the determining factor for if we receive from God what God has given to us by His grace.  I’ll give you one more example found in the Bible, even though this is not the last example that I could give you of faith being mentioned:

Luk 17:19  And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

Here in this chapter of Luke Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem and is passing through a village where he is met by ten lepers.  These men ask for Jesus to heal them and Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to the priest.  As they were going one of them notices that he has been made whole and comes back to Jesus to worship and thank Him.  Jesus again mentions that it was “his faith” that made him whole.  Every time Jesus only mentions one thing and every time it is the same thing.  Jesus never commends anyone for anything else other than when they had faith.   What you should do is go through and reread all of the Gospels and see if you can find anything else that Jesus ever emphasized to be a determining factor for anyone being saved, healed or delivered?  I know there are times in the Bible that Jesus does not mention anything as being a factor, but every time that I saw Jesus mention anything, it was always the faith of the people that was the determining factor to if they got healed or not.  This is the way the Bible was written and it gives man the choice to believe it or to reject it.  But, if you can see it and understand it, I believe that it will dramatically change your perspective on what God thinks is important.  If Jesus who was God in the flesh says that faith is a critical spiritual reality to possess, then I believe that we need to study the subject to find out what it is that we are missing.  I’ll end this lesson with one more scripture found in the New Testament that is very revealing.

Luk 18:8  I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

Here is a key verse that describes to us about when Jesus comes back to the earth, what exactly He will be looking for in His people.   You can again see how faith is being emphasized as being a critical factor to possess.  It also seems to put the responsibility in our court to whether we have it or not.  Why would God be looking for something that He knew we already had?  It really does not make any sense, if it is not our responsibility to get this faith before He returns for us then Jesus would not need to look to see if we have it.  If it is not up to us to get it, then Jesus does not need to check for something called faith to exist when he returns.  I hope that you understand this logic.

Let me end this lesson by giving you some more scriptures where Jesus emphasized faith to be the determining factor for man to receive from God:

Mat 9:2  And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.

Mat 9:22  But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour.

Mat 9:29  Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you.

Mat 15:28  Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

Luk 7:50  And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.

Luk 18:42  And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee.

These are some of the major scriptures found in the Gospels that reveal faith to be the determining factor for receiving from God.  It is very clearly the only thing that God was looking for and it is the only thing that pleased Him to allow the people to receive.  Reread these verses very carefully and you will begin to understand the importance of faith today to receive from God.  The Bible instructs us to let every word be established in the mouth of two or three witnessess (2 Cor 13:1).  I have just given you two different writers and six different verses and that satisfies the requirement exclusively.  If you choose not to beleive them then that is your problem and not mine.

Here are the key points from today’s very important faith lesson so that you can go back and review:

1.  Faith is visible and observable in the actions of people.
2. Faith is the determining factor for salvation, healing and deliverance.
3. Jesus never mentions any other factor for a person being made whole, other than their faith.
4. Jesus is expecting to find faith when He returns for us very soon.
5. Do you have the faith that Jesus is looking for?

Faith appears to be a critically important subject in the New Testament and it is certainly taught to be the determining factor of whether or not you are a Christian and whether or not you are ever to be made whole.  Jesus rebuked his disciple constantly for having no faith or little faith.  Then Jesus would look at people who got healed and tell them that it was their faith that caused it to come into reality.  Jesus obviously thought faith was important and you need to understand this importance in order to figure out what Bible faith is.  We will discuss more about Bible faith in the next lesson, so please continue to grow in the knowledge of God.  God Bless.

If you would like to continue reading about Bible Faith, you may continue to “Part 3“.