• We can hear the gospel, and even initially receive it, and not have real faith. Difficulties, persecution, and distractions can render what may appear to be faith null and void. Faith is not merely an emotional reaction and often involves communication and reflection. Faith develops and deepens over time as we apply it to more areas of life. Having “enough faith” is not a means to get what we want from God. A response of faith often comes after some period of time and input from many sources and people. It always involves divine intervention, dramatic or not. True faith always produces fruit - but be very careful about judging that.
• Biblical faith is not blind “confidence” in something, especially ourselves or some vague concept of “fate.” We all have faith in many things, concrete and abstract, every day. The issue is the trustworthiness of the object of our faith, of that in which we put our trust. Faith tends to be an issue in proportion to our need. When there is something that is out of our control, that we are powerless to accomplish or fix, we become very interested in whatever outside party can.
• Ultimately, faith is a choice - but God is at the center. He intervenes to draw us to himself, sometimes in overt and obvious ways and other times in subtle and indirect ways of which we might not even be aware. There are many situations, places, and people with which we can be involved that will make it very difficult for us to come to true saving faith. The issue becomes not so much “I can’t,” as “I won’t.”

Faith is our response to the divine dynamics of love and grace. Despite the ways the concept has evolved apart from biblical principles of faith, it is not something we do to earn favor with God. Faith is recognizing that he extends unearned favor to us because he loves us - and only because he loves us. This Sunday we will hear from some of our own HBF folks about their faith stories. We all have them, some dramatic, some not. It is good for all of us to hear and remember them that we might be encouraged to continually exercise faith in the trustworthy one, Jesus Christ.