If I hope I will be healed, is that the same as believing or having what the Bible calls faith, that God will heal me? If I’m hoping Christ will return to take His authentic followers to be with Him in Heaven, is that the same faith that the Bible refers to as belief?
When in my twenties, I deeply wanted to have faith that would move a mountain. I convinced myself and confessed that it would cast a nearby mountain into the sea, as Jesus promised. I did my best to believe the next day it would be gone. The next morning, I was confused and semi-depressed because it was still there! Assuming I missed something somewhere in my efforts, I then convinced myself and confessed my eyes would be healed so I wouldn’t have to wear glasses. I refused to wear my glasses for several days even when I struggled to see. Finally, I had to acknowledge my eyes were not healed. Yet I knew the Bible was God’s Word, which is infallible. My need to reconcile my conviction and experience sent me on a search for biblical truth about the spirit world.
I discovered the original biblical word translated faith meant to have a deep assurance, conviction based on what God had said. Hope was to expect something in the future. Faith and hope can be like twins, but only if the hope is based on the same substance, which can be quite different. Now faith is the assurance (substance) of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1, ESV). I realized I had put my hope primarily on my interpretation or imagination of what Jesus had said, not on what the Spirit revealed to me—game changing difference.
My hope is a partner with faith when it is based on the understanding the Holy Spirit has made real to me. His enlightenment brings an inner conviction which is much more than a mental assent or emotional fantasy that comes out of mental gymnastics. Authentic faith is only obtainable through a divine encounter, not attainable through intellectual study. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8, NKJV). We can freely receive faith from Christ, but there is nothing we can do to earn it (Heb. 12:2). This is the dividing line that separates religious indoctrination and Sprit revelation of truth. Indoctrination creates a hope based on imagination or what they learned from others, not from the Holy Spirit revealed truth. It is no wonder that supposed childhood faith was not sustainable after the teenager leaves the influence of home or their local church. The fundamental distinction between Christian faith and Christian hope is that faith is a substantial trusting in a relationship with a person. It’s a confidence, not a finger-crossing wish.
Faith is more than hope because it involves trust in a person, which may have a backward dimension and a forward element. Jesus could endure the cross because He had tasted by revelation the joy that was yet to come. (Hebrews 11:2) This allows me to have faith to patiently wait for a healing or Christ’s return and not have to link it to when or how I have imagined it will happen.