What Is Faith After All?

Luke 17:5, 10: "The apostles said to the Lord, 'Increase our faith!' (Jesus later replied) So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.'"



Having attended church my entire life, I have heard some interesting explanations of "faith" by teachers and preachers. Many have cited Hebrews 11 as the "faith chapter," and they specifically focus upon Hebrews 11:1, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Whereas I believe that Hebrews 11 is a wonderful passage that can be used to better understand the concept of faith, I believe that people have erroneously misinterpreted what faith is from this chapter. For example, I've heard people say, "You just got to believe in God and that is faith" or "You just have to trust God as much as you trust the chair in which you are seated." It seems that people have relegated "faith" to a cognitive assent to the existence of God without any responsive action on their part. Many believe that we just need to know the tenets of the faith without truly practicing them; James 2:17 speaks to this kind of faith as being a "dead faith" (which in reality is no faith at all).



For me, the "faith chapter" of the Bible is Luke 17, for it is here that our Savior defines for the apostles what faith actually is. As the apostles asked Jesus to increase their faith, the Lord replied with a story of a servant who had been working for his master, plowing the fields and tending the sheep. When the servant arrived at the master's home after a long day of working in the master's fields, Jesus said that the master would not ask the servant to sit at the table to eat; rather, the master would tell the servant to prepare the master's meal and serve it. Only after that could the servant attend to his own personal needs. Jesus concluded the story by saying that the attitude of the servant should be one of unworthiness at being given the privilege of serving such a great master. Thus, the servant would not begrudge the numerous responsibilities that the master expected of him; rather, he would be honored to do what was considered to be his duty for his lord. This servant was humble, grateful, and surrendered to his master.



Soon after this word of instruction, Jesus encountered 10 lepers who wanted to be healed from their infirmity. Jesus healed them and instructed them to see the priests . . . an instruction that they quickly obeyed. However, only one returned to the Savior shouting praise to Him and falling at His feet in worship and thanksgiving. Jesus noted that this response of surrender and humble praise was the "faith" that saved the one leper who returned.



Afterward, Jesus began a discussion of the coming of the kingdom of God. As He warned His disciples not to worry about when the Son of Man would return in His glory, He mentioned that the world would be quite "faithless" when He returned. Jesus specifically referenced the days of Noah and Lot as the parallel disposition of the people at his second advent. The people of Noah and Lot's era were self-consumed with "eating and drinking, marrying, buying and selling, (etc.)". They were more consumed with their own personal wants than surrendering their wills to the will of God. Jesus warned His disciples to "Remember Lot's wife!" He did so to remind them that this woman was so longing of her selfish appetites that she was willing to defy the commands of the Lord in order that she might reclaim her right to her sensual desires. Jesus continued this warning by telling the disciples, "Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it." Jesus was reminding His disciples that being a disciple of the Lord necessitated sacrificing "self" on the throne of surrender to the One True God!



So what can we learn from this faith chapter? If we are desirous of an increased faith in our lives, we must be willing to see that we are unworthy servants before the Lord, and that it is a privilege to serve Him in obedience. We must be willing to fall at the feet of the Lord like the cured leper and worship Him above all other persons and things (including ourselves). We must not fall prey to the philosophy of this world that pursues the vanity of self-indulgence; rather, we must "lose our lives" in submission to the Lord as our Master and Savior.



This is faith at its core. It is so much more than mere intellectual awareness to the existence of God; it is capitulation, humility, obedience, and surrender all wrapped up into one. The way that we are able to increase our faith is by examining our heart's disposition to these truths and see if we are following them as an expression of worship to the Lord. If we need to increase our faith, we will start by seeking forgiveness for our not living lives of submission to the Lord. What we are assured is that the Lord is "Faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from unrighteousness" (I John 1:9). This is when our faith begins to grow . . . and this faith pleases the Lord (Hebrews 11:6).