Having faith in Jesus Christ is the crux of Christianity. It is the focal point for anyone having a relationship with God. It takes a certain level of faith for us to trust in a close relative or someone we love. These are people that we can see with our own eyes. However, we cannot see God with our physical eyes. Therefore, it takes a special kind of faith to trust in God. God first loved us. He did so by sending His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins. This is the assurance from God that He loves us. This understanding makes it easier for us to have faith in Him.

Hebrews 11:1 says that “faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” There are two parts to the definition in that sentence. First, we must have confidence in what we hope for. This is more than wishing that something will happen. When we say that we have confidence in something we hope for, we are actually placing our trust in it. For example, when our souls pass from these bodies, we trust that we will then be in the presence of God through the blood of Jesus Christ for eternity. We are confident about that. There is no doubt – it is a closed subject. The second part of the definition in the previous verse is that faith is the assurance about what we do not see. This is not something mystical such as magic arts. Rather, it means that God’s universe covers both the physical and the invisible. That is why He can take our invisible souls from these physical bodies and place them in His invisible presence forever. The confidence we hope for and the assurance about what we do not see occurs right now as well as for eternity. Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (italics mine). We have confidence and assurance because Christ lives in us. Once we have established a relationship with Him through the confession and forgiveness of our sins, He then is inside us. He is not just a Deity that lives up above the clouds – He lives inside the souls of those of us who now have a relationship with Him. That is assurance.