And Jesus answered saying to them, “Have faith in God” (Mark
11:22).

The sun is perhaps the most credible object of faith for the
world. It appears to be immutable. It has always been there, 24
hours of every day, 365 days a year. Without the sun, people
couldn’t live. If the sun didn’t rise tomorrow morning, what
would happen to the world’s faith? All of humanity would be
thrown into confusion.

If we have such great faith in the sun, why don’t we have even
greater faith in the Son who made the sun and all the rest of the
fixed order of the universe?

Our faith is in God. Genuine faith is born out of a knowledge of
the will of God and exists only to fulfill that will. Faith is
not a means of getting man’s will done in heaven; it is the means
of getting God’s will done on earth.

After hearing me speak on spiritual conflicts, a young man came
by to talk about his personal life. He said he’d had several
experiences of not being able to speak the name of Jesus aloud. I
asked him about his faith. He thought he had made a decision for
Christ years earlier in an evangelistic meeting. He tried living
with some American Indians to continue his spiritual journey, but
that proved to be disastrous. He finally ended up living in a
pastor’s home where he was helped with the assurance of his
salvation. The pastor encouraged him to just go live by faith.

The young man said to me, “I’ve been trying to live by faith for
three years, and it has been one trial after another.”

“Faith in what?” I asked.

He didn’t know how to respond. This young man was trying to live
by faith in faith. But faith itself is not a valid object. The
only valid object for faith is God and the revelation we have of
Him in His Word. Faith is the operating principle of life. The
only difference between Christian and non-Christian faith is the
object. God must be the object of our faith.

Lord God, I place my faith in You alone today. Help me not to
allow anyone or anything to take Your place as the object of my
faith.

This daily devotional is published and distributed by
http://www.GOSHEN.net/ . It is written by Neil Anderson at
http://www.freedominchrist.com/ .