So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, “I love God,” and hate a brother or sister are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
1 John 4:16-21 NRSVUE

In today’s preaching, we will take a deeper look at the nature of faith and explore how we can move beyond simple belief into a lived commitment. The following reflection follows the flow of our recent teaching, inviting us to reconsider what it means to truly have faith.

1. Faith as Commitment, Not Just Belief

In many traditions, faith is reduced to a set of doctrines or a “belief system”. However, the biblical Greek word for faith, pistis, is rooted in commitment and relationship. While belief is a part of it, belief alone is not faith; many can master theological arguments while possessing very little actual faith.

True faith is an act of the heart—what the Latin credo (I believe) originally meant: “I give my heart to”. It is God who first initiates this commitment, inviting us into a covenant, just as God reached out to the slaves in Egypt. Faith is our response to that call, a decision to “take up our cross” and abide in love.

2. Faith is Relational, Not Just Personal

We often think of faith as a private, individual matter between “me and God”. But if faith is a commitment, it must be relational. Our relationship with God is directly measured by our relationship with one another and the world. As 1 John 4:21 reminds us, those who love God must also love their brothers and sisters. Faith is found in how we treat our neighbors and how we care for the creation around us.

3. The “Sampa-Taya” Journey: Trust and Risk

Faith is not about absolute certainty; it is about trust and risk-taking. The Filipino word pananampalataya captures this perfectly through the concepts of sampa (to board) and taya (to bet or risk).

Think of a jeepney during rush hour. You sampa (board) even when it’s crowded, holding on tight alongside your fellow passengers, not entirely sure if you’ll make it home safely, but trusting the journey anyway. It is like our OFWs and seafarers who sampa (board) ships to work abroad, carrying only their small tokens of faith—a stampita of the Nazareno or a lucky charm—as they risk everything for a better life. Faith is that “Sampa-Taya” spirit—boarding the journey with God even when the road is uncertain.

4. Faith as Remembering to Find Hope

We often look at faith as something strictly for the future, but we can only look forward with hope if we look back with memory. Throughout the scriptures, God repeatedly tells the people: “Remember”. Remember that you were once slaves; remember the covenant; remember the bread and the wine.

When we face “dark times” or what we might call “chaka” (ugly) moments in life, our brains tend to catastrophize—we forget that things have ever been good and assume they will always be bad. We become like the Israelites in the desert who, despite seeing God’s wonders, wanted to go back to Egypt because they forgot God’s faithfulness. Faith is the intentional act of remembering that even in our darkest hour, God’s goodness was present, often through the people who stood by us.

Living the Ordinary Faith

Faith isn’t about constant excitement or emotional highs. Like a long-term relationship or marriage, there will be highs, lows, and long stretches of ordinariness where you might not “feel” anything at all. True faith is staying committed through that ordinariness. It is a journey we take together, remembering where we’ve been so we can have the courage to see where we are going.

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