In the New Testament, faith isn’t something we’re counselled to have. The one who’s born again is born with faith; faith is our conscious lifestyle. This wasn’t so in the Old Testament. What they had was trust and confidence in God; they “believed” and expressed confidence toward God for different things, but faith actually goes beyond believing with confidence and trust.
In the New Testament, we live in a realm that’s unperceivable to the senses; we live spiritually. Therefore, the Word gives us a clear definition of what faith really is. Hebrews 11:1says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” In the Old Testament, when they wanted something from God, they released their faith toward Him, but it was more a matter of “Lord, I trust you to do what you promised.” Abraham had the best of it, because the Bible says he made an unqualified commitment to God; he broke all the limits.
In the New Testament, faith means more; it calls real, or sees the materiality of that which you’ve hoped for. In other words, even though that thing isn’t visible in the physical realm, you know it’s real and as a result, you declare that you have it! You’re not “trusting God” to make it happen; you know that it’s done; it’s real, even though you can’t touch it!
Moreover, when the Bible says, “faith is the evidence,” or “title deed”; it means that there’s something it represents. When you purchase a property, the realtor doesn’t carry the property to you; what he gives you is the title deed. That document is the proof or evidence that the property belongs to you. You don’t carry the property around with you to show that you own it. Where necessary, the title deed is all you show.
Faith is your “title deed”; it’s the evidence of your right to things you don’t see: “NOW FAITH is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things hope for, being the proof of things do not see and the conviction of their reality \[faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses\]” (Hebrews 11:1 AMP).