How to Teach Your Kids About Faith
Question 12: What is faith in Jesus Christ?
Faith in Jesus Christ is relying on Him alone for salvation.
Question 11 teaches that the way to be saved from the punishment for sin is to repent of our sins and have faith in Jesus Christ. What is faith in Jesus Christ? Faith in Jesus Christ involves two things. First, the meaning of faith. Second, the object of faith.
What is the meaning of faith? The word “faith” is sometimes called “belief” or “trust.” It means to rely upon, or depend upon. To have faith in Jesus Christ doesn’t just mean agreeing with certain facts about Him. That is certainly part of what it means to have faith, but there more. Remember, even the devil believes the right facts about Jesus Christ, but he is not saved. You can believe in someone and hate them at the same time. Simply agreeing that Jesus is who He claimed to be is not saving faith. Faith means personally relying upon Jesus for salvation.
Imagine a wooden chair. To have faith in the chair is more than simply believing that the chair exists, or that it is strong enough to hold your weight. To have faith is to actually sit in the chair, trusting in, relying upon, and depending on the chair to hold you up. To have faith means to trust in, rely upon, and depend upon Jesus Christ for salvation. It is to believe that through Him you have reconciliation with God and the promise of eternal life.
At the same time, to have faith in Jesus Christ means that you no longer have faith in anything else to save you. It means that you no longer trust in good deeds, or in religious practices, or in any other god to save you from sin and hell.
How can you know if your faith in Jesus Christ is real? First, by answering an important question: Why should God let you into heaven? If your answer is that Jesus saved you by His death and resurrection, then your faith is real. But if your answer is that God should let you into heaven because you are not bad, and you try to be good, then you don’t have real faith. Your faith is in your own good deeds rather than in the Savior.
Second, you can know that your faith is real by looking at your behavior. If you have real faith, then that means that God has saved you and gives you a new heart with the desire and power to please Him. It doesn’t mean that you are sinless, but that you sin less and feel worse. If this is true of you, then you should notice a change in yourself. You should notice that your desire is to please God; that you don’t want to sin; and you should see yourself trying to change, not to earn your way to heaven, but to please God.
The second thing that faith involves is the object of your faith. You can have all the faith in the world, but if your faith is not in the right object, then you will still go to hell. For example, you can believe all you want that a tree is your god, but that doesn’t change the true nature of the tree. It is still a tree, and it can’t help, no matter how much you believe in it. For faith to be genuine, it must have the right object.
What is the object of our faith? What is it that we must have faith in so that we can be saved? We must have faith in Jesus Christ – that He is God’s Son, that He died on the cross to pay for our sins, and that He rose again on the third day. You must believe that the story of Jesus is not just a fairy tale. It is a true story. And Jesus’ death really did purchase salvation for all those who believe in Him. He really did rise from grave. And He really is coming back again.
Questions for Discussion:
- What is the meaning of faith?
- What is the object of our faith?
- How you tell if your faith is genuine?
- Do you have faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?
For Further Study:
- John 3:16
- Acts 16:31
- Romans 4:4-5
- Galatians 5:4-6
- Ephesians 2:8-9
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