Treasures
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Faith has lost much of its meaning today. Today the word faith tends to refer to a kind of a hazy, vague belief of some kind in something or other. But in God’s Word, it means much more than that! It is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen; it is the title deed (Hebrews 11:1).
Nearly 400 years ago, when the Greek New Testament was being translated into English, the translators ran into a puzzling problem: How should they translate the word “hupostasis” in the 11th chapter of Hebrews? They knew from the way this word was used in other Greek literature that it apparently meant something fairly substantial.
In modern times, archaeologists uncovered the burned ruins of an old inn in northern Israel. There they found a small iron chest, containing apparently the papers of a Roman noblewoman who had been traveling in Israel at that time for the purpose of checking up on her various land holdings. They found that most of the papers in this chest were labeled with the title “Hupostasis”—and were the title deeds to her properties.
The word “substance” used in Hebrews 11:1 conveys the message equally well, and if you want to make it even clearer and more explicit, you can write “title deed” above the word “substance”: “Now faith is the title deed of things hoped for.”
It’s possible that this Roman woman had never seen these properties that she had purchased in Israel, but she knew she owned them and could prove her ownership with the title deeds. Likewise, if you have faith, even though you haven’t seen the fulfilment of God’s Word yet, you have the title deed of faith and you will see it eventually!
So how do you acquire such faith? The Bible tells us that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17). Take the time to read and study the Bible and ask the Lord to increase your faith (Luke 17:5). Jesus said, “Whatever things you ask for when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them” (Mark 11:24).
Prayer is our means of personal communication with God. Prayer is a connecting link between human needs and divine resources, the cry of the child to his Father with the expectation that the Father loves His children and hears their cries and answers them. “For if an earthly father knows how to give good gifts to his children, how much more will the heavenly Father give good things to those that ask Him” (Matthew 7:11)?
A pastor once commented, rather humorously, that his whole congregation had the “gimmes”—they were continually asking the Lord, and yet never believing that He heard their prayers and would answer. They were continually saying, “Give me, give me, give me,” and their prayer life was focused on asking for things.
The story is told of an old janitor in a country church in the foothills of Virginia who was found standing on top of a ladder, working in the belfry, which opened into the prayer-meeting room. As he sat on top of the ladder, he spoke to a group of prayer-meeting folks that had gathered a little early for the service.
He said to them, “You know what’s the matter with that bell that it won’t ring? That old belfry is so full of prayers that never went any higher than the roof of this church that the bell hasn’t got room to move! Don’t you know that prayer has to be accompanied by faith, and you have to expect that God will answer?”
Prayer is not simply a ritual, but our means of communication with God, as real and as genuine as using the telephone, only even more so. The party at the other end of the line—God—is always there, and He has promised in His Word that “before they call, I will answer; And while they are still speaking, I will hear” (Isaiah 65:24).
Our heavenly Father’s eyes are upon His children and His ears are open to their prayers (1 Peter 3:12). God is not asleep, nor has He gone on a long journey.
In the Bible account in 1 Kings 18, Elijah challenged the heathen to see whose God would answer prayer by consuming a sacrifice by fire. Elijah mocked them when they cried to their pagan god and received no answer:
“‘Oh, Baal, hear us!’ But there was no voice nor any that answered. And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, ‘Cry aloud; for he is a god, either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awaked.’ But there was no voice; no one answered, no one paid attention” (1 Kings 18:26–29).
However, when Elijah offered his sacrifice to God, “the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench. Now when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, ‘The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!’” (1 Kings 18:38–39).
Some years ago, a father asked for prayer for his son, who was not a believer. Every time there were requests for prayer in the church, he asked again for the salvation of this boy, and at last one night, the boy came down to the front in response to the invitation and gave his heart to God.
After the prayer, this father who had prayed so long for his son, upon hearing the news that he had received Christ, replied, “You must be mistaken. It must be some boy by the same name.” It took about five minutes to persuade that man that it was his son and that he had really been saved!
That night, the father testified that he had been praying for his son for 20 years and had never been so surprised as when he found out that he had become a Christian. Think of 20 years of praying and never expecting God to work in his son’s life! While he had deep confidence in the Bible as the Word of God, he had no expectancy or hope that God would hear his prayers and answer.
How it must grieve the heart of the Infinite for His child to pray over and over without the least expectancy, faith, or hope. Too often we want God, without the least effort on our part, to lay everything we need in our laps. God has promised to hear our prayers and supply all our needs, but He has conditions, and those conditions are “Believe that you will receive them and you will have them” (Mark 11:24).
He has a right to set down His own conditions, and what less could He ask than that we honor Him by believing His Word. His Word never said that without perfection it is impossible to please God—it is without faith that it is impossible to please Him. “For he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6).
If there is in your heart today a desire to please God, honor His Word by believing in Him and trusting in Him to fulfill His promises in your life in accordance with His will. He may not always answer your prayer in the way you expect Him to, but you can be confident that He will never fail to answer you in the way that He knows is best and will fulfill His plan for your life. So bring every care and every need to Him with expectant faith, trusting that He will hear your petitions and answer your prayers.
“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him” (1 John 5:14–15).
From an article in Treasures, published by the Family International in 1987. Adapted and republished May 2024. Read by Reuben Ruchevsky.
