Faith…… is the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1
Hebrews 11:1 not only tells us that faith is the substance of the things hoped for, it also tells us it is the evidence of what we do not see.
Evidence is described as the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid. From the Greek, evidence is [elegchos /el·eng·khos/]; There are two occurrences; AV translates as “reproof” once, in 2 Timothy 3:16 and “evidence” here in Hebrews 11:1. The word means a proof, that by which a thing is proved or tested. 2 conviction.
It is the word, and the word only, that is to be the proof of our faith. What we are able to see with the eye of the Spirit is to be sufficient for us. The question becomes, what do I see? Vision deals with our future, never our past. God has a future preferred state for each of us and we have to see what He sees.
Paul wrote in Romans chapter eight that we don’t hope for the things we already see. We will fail when we continually look in the natural for the proving of our faith. Our Faith IS the evidence we need.
Faith calls those things which be not as though they were. Faith doesn’t need to see naturally because it has already seen spiritually and what it sees spiritually, faith knows will come to pass. The seed sown in good soil always brings forth fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the corn in the ear.
Waiting is a difficult process for those given to reason and frustrated with time. God exists outside the realm of time. He is not a God limited to time, as a man would be. He is a God of eternity. He is simply, always, now. That’s why He sees the beginning and the end of a thing. Time controls us here and now because of the limitation of our natural body. We live in time and space. It takes time to walk across the space of a room. Yet the spirit of man, in his mind, can travel without the restriction of his physical body. The mind can hold unlimited imagination and see the potential of all things. We can see all things possible. When we try to bring that into the natural elements of this world and it’s limitations we become frustrated by the time it takes to produce. We reason, we waiver, we doubt, we believe, we quit, we try again, and on it goes until we come to the place of accepting and understanding that the word is working and the word is OUR evidence of things not seen.
The Psalmist declared; I would have fainted and lost heart had I not believed I would see the goodness of God in the land of the living, and this is true for us all. We do faint and lose heart when we lose our vision. Let’s not allow our perceptions to be altered by the realities we “see” in the here and now, but let us keep our eyes on Jesus, the word, and not be moved.