Daily Devotional
Faith is More than Positive Thinking

March 21, 2025

Ponder This

The world’s definition of faith is: if you believe strong enough, you can make it so. That’s just positive thinking. If you believe hard enough, try hard enough, it’ll come to pass. But that’s not the Bible’s definition of faith. If I don’t believe I can do something, some would say, “Man, just have faith. Believe you can and you can.” No, that’s not true. You can believe that you can fly out of a second story window, but you can’t do it. Believing won’t change that.

Faith is the evidence of things hoped for. Things hoped for means they are already there. God has promised them. And, therefore, because God promised them, you can have faith for them. The only reason you can have faith is because it is already so. God has said it’s so. God has made it so. God has given it to you. And, therefore, because God has given it to you, then, correspondingly, you have faith in your heart. That’s the difference between biblical faith and positive thinking. Positive thinking says if you believe hard enough it’ll be so. The Bible says it is so. Believe it! Faith is the evidence of things hoped for. And things hoped for means divine certainty based on the Word of God, because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

• When have you tried to solve a problem through positive thinking? How did that go?
• What are some things God has promised that you can have faith in? What of God’s promises are challenging for you? How does today’s passage encourage you in that?

Practice This

Pray for God to grow your faith in His promises.