Believing Is Seeing

I’m sure that you have heard the popular expression, “Seeing is believing,” but I would suggest instead that believing is seeing! Believe is an action verb. We must deliberately believe God. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Substance is something that is tangible, not something elusive and vague; and evidence is something that is solid and concrete that will hold up in a court of law. That’s the kind of faith that we must have. Scripture tells us that the Jewish patriarch Abraham, “against hope believed in hope,” and “staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief.” Though he and his wife were both well beyond years to have a child, Abraham trusted God anyway and saw the promise of Isaac come to pass!

Today, folks seem very timid about believing in God – they are easily swayed by their fears. Faith and fear are polar opposites, and yet the definition can be the same for both of these words: “To believe that what you cannot see will come to pass.” Why do we so readily choose fear then, over faith?

There are those who advocate a blind faith, but I think that is absurd. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. We do not dare believe something that God has not first spoken to us. I repeat, we do not dare believe something that God has not spoken to us. Once, as the disciples were following Jesus by the sea, He said to them, “Let us pass over unto the other side.” They then entered into a ship and set out. When they were in the midst of the sea, a terrible storm blew up, and the boat began to fill with water. In their distress they cried out to Jesus, who was asleep, saying, “Master, carest thou not that we perish?” If only they had remembered the word that He spoke before they departed, they might have trusted that if the Son of God said let us pass over, it would come to pass! Their hearts and minds were overtaken by the storm and by what they saw with their eyes, and not with what God said would happen. Their faith should have been based on hearing what Jesus said, not what they feared might happen.

So it is with us. God speaks to us through His Word. However, because things get tough, we lose sight of what He said, and instead, let circumstances cause us to doubt and fear. When we keep our eyes on Jesus, and on His Word, we can actually walk over the waves of adversity and unbelief; and we can say with Peter, “Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.” Our faith must not fall short of what God has promised us; but neither can it stretch beyond what He has said.

Are you ready for your faith to become sight? Are you ready to walk in faith and not in fear? Are you ready to hear what God would speak to you today and walk in the faith of what you hear? Hebrews 11, that great faith chapter, is full of people who acted on what they heard God say to them, and these became the heroes of the faith and examples to the believers. Are you ready to join the ranks of the faithful? That’s what God has called you to! Believing, dear one, is seeing!

“And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.

And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.

But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.

And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased.

Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God.”

- Matthew 14:28-33