I wrote, “The Final Feast”, not to tell believers exactly how to become a Tabernacle Christian but rather to help those interested personally explore this undiscovered country. Learn about the spiritual fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles and Divine Love here…
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
A substance is something you can taste, touch, see, hear, or smell. Anything that has substance is something we call real. Here is a truth,
“The substance of faith is action or in-action”
If you have faith, real faith, it reveals its substance in what you do or don’t do. In other words, the substance of faith is evidenced by real world actions or sometimes even in-action. For instance, Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a pearl of great price. In His story the man who finds it buys a whole field in order to possess it. The substance of faith is evidenced by the believers actions. In other words he paid the price.
Noah, demonstrated his faith through building a boat on dry land, simply because God told him to do so. We can imagine how people mocked him and told him, especially as the years dragged on, how crazy he was. His belief in the Word of God that foretold of a great flood, caused him to take action and that action was the substance of His faith. The great Ark was a testimony to an evil generation of a flood that had not happened yet. It was a visible and prescient warning to all the world that God had determined, to judge sin. The Ark was the substance of His faith.
James says,
“But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?”
James 2:20
James teaches us that a man who says he has faith, but demonstrates no evidence of his belief, is fooling himself. If you believe, you act according to that belief. Believing in heaven, you work to lay up your treasure there.
At times, the substance of our faith is in-action and that price can be even higher. People told Jesus told Lazarus was sick, the Bible says he tarried. In the gospel of John we read,
The substance of faith was in Jesus’s inaction
“When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was.”
John 11:6
Jesus probably knew that Lazarus was dying for he knew of his death,
“Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead”
John 11: 14
It took great faith on the part of Jesus to not act to prevent Lazarus’s death, because He knew He could. Sometimes the substance of faith is not to do what your natural man wants to do.
John relates further,
“Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.”
John 11:32,33
Not doing what people expect of you is perhaps one of the most difficult forms of substantive faith. You love people so much you want to meet their expectations and relieve their suffering. However, until God allows you to act you must not act or the objectives of God may be derailed. People, not understanding what God is doing, may even ridicule you for not acting as expected. In John we read again,
“And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?”
John 11:37
In the end Jesus’ great faith of in-action resulted in one of the greatest miracles He ever performed.
God says,
“And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.”
John 11:43
Our life reflects our faith
Friends, if you truly believe, your life will reflect that belief in the actions or in-actions you take. If you say you believe, but do not have action or in-action that follows, then your faith has no substance and, as James says, it is dead. What God asks us to do on a daily basis is not difficult to understand, but it is costly for the natural man to follow. However, if our spiritual man believes we will certainly act accordingly.
