The story is told of a boy flying a kite who was so successful that the kite went out of sight. There the boy stood with a cord in his hand that bent upwards into the sky. Someone asked him how he knew the kite was there. Without saying a word, the boy put the string into the hands of the bystander who immediately could feel the pull of the unseen kite on the string. You see, the boy didn’t just have a gut feeling that the kite was there; he could prove it was there.
Likewise, faith is not a feeling; it’s a fact. Hebrews 11:1 defines it this way: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The word “substance” means, “that which has actual existence; foundation.” The word “evidence” means, “that by which a thing is proved.” Thus, biblical faith is not a feeling, but rather the proof of the existence of the unseen things of God. For example, a man may never see his paperboy, but he knows he exists – not because of a feeling, but because of that newspaper he finds on his doorstep every day. How do we know that God exists? Not because of a gut feeling, but because of the evidence around us (Rom. 1:19-20; cf. Acts 14:17).
Friends, is your faith based on feelings or facts?