Is your faith for real?

This morning, this question is asked for a reason. It’s a call for us to look at what we have and determine that what we have is the real thing. The faithful saints need to hear the message this morning. We all have faith in something, but if our faith is in anything other than God, we have placed our faith in the wrong thing. Husbands and wives can fail, children don’t pan out sometimes, friends can and will walk away, houses burn down, and jobs see you as a liability when you can’t perform any longer. Faith in the wrong thing won’t hold up. As many have discovered, some the hard way, every other thing is a false god.

Faith, this morning, is a strong yet powerful word. The bell I want to ring in our ears this morning is: is the faith that we have for real? Well, that points to what we have faith in; is it for real? Our faith should be steadfast, not that it won’t shake, rock, and reel, but it will remain strong through adversity because of who our faith is in. Community friends, it is good to have faith this morning because genuine gospel faith sees the unseen. It walks when there is nothing to see in front of it. When everything says that nothing is going to happen and nothing is going to change, true bible faith keeps right on walking despite any challenges. This morning, I’m challenging all of us to put our faith in God. If our faith is in Him, it has been placed in the right place, and we have good reason to have faith in Him. He would have me encourage us all to hold on to our faith in Him. When all the chips are down, we will need our faith because there may come a time when our faith is all we will have.

Community, we are living in perilous times. If you don’t believe me, just look around at our world. On a moral level, it has never been this bad. now let’s look at the word “faith.” Faith means “Complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” For example, if someone were to say to us, “I have faith in you!” That means, “I have confidence in you!” That’s an honor for somebody to say that to us. And the word “Hope” means “A feeling of expectation and a desire for a certain thing to happen.” Every Christian needs these, for without these, we will fall into a place of depression; without faith and hope, we all would give up. We would have given up a long ago, but we kept walking.

In the bible, there was a woman who found herself in a bad place. She was down to her last resort. She is not a Jew but a Gentile, yet she approaches Jesus even though she is considered an outsider, an outcast. She presses through the prejudices of people and makes her way to Jesus. Let me tell somebody this morning that some things will only come to us when we press our way. This morning, let me tell somebody else that you may not have a relationship with Jesus or be a regular church attendant, but the right thing will come along and cause you to do what you ordinarily would not do. You will find a way to get to Him, especially when it comes to our children. This woman did not press her way forward because of herself, she pressed her way to Jesus because of her child, and she had to have faith to approach Him, which proves that her faith was for real. Community, we all need to make sure our faith is for real, and we need to ensure that that faith is in Jesus Christ!

But our children are our heart, flesh of our flesh, bone of our bones. You know, I watch some of the commercials about the children at St Jude Hospital. I hear the stories of parents with tears in their eyes when they talk about their innocent children battling cancer. Their stories are heart-wrenching, to say the least. We can only imagine what they are going through, but they find hope through the ministry of St Jude. This woman was at her wit’s end. this Canaanite woman approaches Jesus and cries out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously possessed with a devil (Matt. 15:21-28).” But He did not answer her word. She came and worshipped Him rather than take no for an answer, saying, “Lord help me.” Friends, I believe in the old saying, “the wheel that makes the loudest noise gets the attention!”

Then Jesus answered, “It is not (proper) to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.” Look at her faith. She answered Jesus and said, “Truth Lord: yet even the dogs eat of the crumbs which falls from their master’s table.” Wow! That’s genuine faith! She had so much faith until Jesus just spoke the word, and the bible says that her child was made whole from that very same hour. Saints, check your FAITH account. Is your faith for real?