Faith is ...

How would you explain faith as a gift from God? What actions can people take to receive and/or increase faith?

?

Faith is certainly one of our gifts from God. Faith is represented by the disciple Peter. It is our ability to believe in the one power and the one presence, God omnipotent. Faith is our ability to know that we are spiritual beings, living in a physical body, experiencing the physical world.

My favorite scripture quote defining faith is: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for ... the evidence of things not seen.” (Heb.11:1) Faith is a magnetic power that attracts to us the desire of our hearts from the invisible spiritual substance. Having faith is an attitude of inner trust. We trust that we can live life, feeling secure in the power of Infinite Love and Intelligence (God within us).

A friend gave me a small magnet with a photo of a Bearded Collie dog. Of course, his hair hangs down over his eyes, but his mouth is smiling. The caption reads: “We walk by faith, not by sight.” Whenever my conscious mind wrestles with a problem and I feel a bit tense, I take a few moments and remind myself that all solutions begin by trusting God, the Invisible Source of all our good.

?JERI LINN is pastor of Unity Church of the Valley in Montrose. Reach her at (818) 249-4396.

?

Examining the scripture from Hebrews 11:1-3 (New International Version) “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the Universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”

God’s gift to us is the conviction that whatever challenges we may be facing will be resolved when, as Jesus taught, we “judge not by appearances.”

Our Creator’s will for each of us is happiness. We veer from the path of happiness when we turn away from spiritual laws. From the “Science of Mind” texbook by Ernest Holmes, “The story of the Prodigal Son constitutes one of the greatest spiritual lessons in the history of religious education. The Great Teacher, Jesus, endeavored to show that God turns to us as we turn to Him; that there is a reciprocal action between the Universal and the individual mind; that the Spirit is ready to help us whenever we turn to it.”