Hebrews 11:1  Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Definition of faith:

      The “faith chapter” of Hebrews is a wonderful chapter in God’s word. Here it is defined, not as some intangible wistfulness, but as “substance” and “evidence”.

      Faith must first have a legitimate object, and that object is nothing less than the mighty Creator by Whom the worlds were created out of nothing by His very word.

      Beyond this, faith is defined, not by what it is, but by what it does. The man of faith comes to God by a more excellent sacrifice – like that of Abel (verse 4) – which typifies Christ and His death for us. Faith will, like Enoch, live to please God (Verse 5), and will, like Noah, prepare an ark – do whatever is necessary out of obedience to God – to the saving of his house (verse 70.

      True faith will, like Abraham, go out as God leads, not knowing where and willing to live in tents if necessary (verse 8, 9) as he looks for the eternal city whose Builder and maker is God (verse 10). Such faith

Man of God

1 Timothy 6:11  But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.

Man or woman of God:

      The expression “man of God” appears 78 times in the Bible with only two occurrences in the New Testament, both of these are by Paul to Timothy, the other being in 2 Timothy 3:17.  In the Old Testament it is used often of prophets or those sent by God for His work. Sometimes they are named and other times they are simply called the man of God. The first occurrence is in reference to Moses (Deut. 33:1) and often throughout the Old Testament he is called man of God. David is called man of God in Neh 12:24. In Judges when an angel appears to Manoah and his wife about Samson, he is called a man of God.

Qualities of a man or woman of God:

            Moses being called a man of God was a great leader and the law giver to Israel. He was also said to be the meekest man (Num 12:3). David being called a man of God is said to be a man after God’s

Mark 4:38 (KJV) -- And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?

Time of great problems:

      There are times when we have some seemingly great problems and God is no where to be found. He seems to ignore our prayers and our praying gets difficult and the sky seems like brass – our prayers just bounce back to us. If this persists too long we begin to wonder if God cares about us.

Consider the sparrows:

      Jesus talked about sparrows in teaching us not to be overly burdened about the things of this life (Lu 12:6-7). Unless there is some obvious reason (like sin – Psa 66:18; Prov 15:8, 29; Isa 59:1-2) that our prayers are not being answered, then we can reason that perhaps it is a test as Job was tested.

The disciples:

      The disciples came to Jesus in the midst of the storm with the idea He either could not help or would not – He did not care. They feared for their life believing that the