True faith is an attitude toward God that governs at all times what we are and what we do. Belief, on the other hand, is assent to a creed. It is a mental understanding, a philosophy.

The result of true faith is life in God's Presence. Belief in a creed may accompany true faith or may be found in a personality void of Christ's Life.

True faith has to do with now—how we are thinking and acting now—as well as with our reward in the future. Traditional belief is directed toward going to Heaven when we die; although lately there is an increased emphasis on persuading God to make us prosperous and successful in the present world.

True faith transforms what we are. Traditional belief hopes for peaceful, happy surroundings we can enjoy after we die but makes few serious demands on us concerning change in our character.

True faith has to do with our relationship to God through Christ—now and forever.

Traditional belief addresses itself to a change in location from this sin-cursed earth to a place of happiness where the destructive presence and consequences of sin are not present. We are hoping to place our untransformed personality in a mansion where all is joy and peace and no demands are made on us.

The traditional belief is looking for a sudden effortless change of our moral nature when the Lord comes. The Lord indeed can deliver us from sin in a moment. But the militantly righteous character of the victorious saint is formed as we obey God by faith during periods of suffering.

True faith makes heavy demands on our energy, time, thought—on all we are and do. Traditional belief requires primarily the maintaining of a correct understanding and profession of facts and events past, present, and future. Belief in special creation rather than belief in evolution is considered to be the mark of a Christian, although the individual may gossip, be proud, haughty, covetous, lustful, drunken, violent, and dishonest.

True faith makes us one with all the saints of history from the time of the righteous Abel, who by faith offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. Abel's sacrifice was more excellent because Abel loved God and was seeking Him. The Scriptures state that the difference between the sacrifice of Abel and the sacrifice of Cain was that Abel's offering to God was performed in faith. The attitude of the heart is of great importance when we are serving the Lord.

As we have stated, true faith makes us one with all the saints of history. Traditional Christian belief maintains that a special set of people known as the "Gentile Church" (an unscriptural term) has been exempted, on the basis of a belief in theological facts, from actually walking by faith according to the scriptural sense of the expression, after the manner of the saints of the eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews.

It is maintained that the Gentile Church is to be carried to Heaven to live forever in mansions because of its profession of faith in Jesus apart from any actual living by faith in God.

To live by faith means, as we have stated, to live each moment of each day in the attitude of loving Christ, seeking Christ, rejoicing in Christ, praising Christ, trusting Christ, hoping in Christ, obeying Christ, coming to know Christ. It is a love relationship not a theological position.

Any set of religious duties, whether they be Judaic, Christian, or of some other religion, or our own personal standard of uprightness that we practice apart from living each day in the pursuit of Christ, are dead works. All we are able to achieve apart from Christ is loss for Him and therefore loss for us.

By His sinless life, atoning death, and triumphant resurrection, Christ has set us free from all religious law (not that we are exempt from the eternal moral law of God, as we pointed out previously). Christ has not set us free so we can go our own way. He has set us free so we can wait on Him without distraction. He died for us, not so we should live to ourselves but to Him who died for us and rose again.

This is the true faith by which the righteous have lived from the beginning of the creation. (from The Just Shall Live by Faith)