A Devotional

Here is part of the devotional I presented at the Commanding General's Battle Update this morning:

“Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time.” Oswald Chambers

Faith is often misunderstood or mistaken for simply acknowledging something exists. In other words, when people ask “Do you believe in God?” quite often they are meaning to ask: do you think God exists?

But acknowledging the existence of God is not the same thing as having faith! To have faith, as Oswald Chambers said, is something more. Having faith means trusting- or, as Chambers said, having deliberate confidence in the character of God. Faith is about believing that God has a plan for our lives, and that this plan ultimately works for good.

Take an example from marriage: if someone asked me if I believed in my wife, I wouldn’t respond: yes, of course she exists. I would understand that they were asking something deeper. Do I trust her? Do I trust her character and trust her actions? That is what’s really being asked.

The same is true with God. To have faith is to speak of a relationship of trust and hope. It involves obediently following God’s plans for our lives and for this world, even when they don’t seem to make sense to us. Faith is to dare to believe that God has something bigger in store for us.

Most importantly, faith saves. As the Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God of God- not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:8-10