If you ask most people, they’ll tell you that faith and belief are the same thing. I used to think so myself. And that leads to all sorts of confusion.
The trouble is they are interrelated, which makes them very close in meaning. So close, in fact, that many modern manuscripts don’t always differentiate clearly between the two. And that leads to even more confusion.
What Is Belief?
So our beliefs are things that we are thoroughly convinced of. Usually (but not always) they are ideas, concepts that we gather through acquiring information and experience. Because of that, our beliefs can change over time as we gain more knowledge and experience more things throughout our lives.
How Is Faith Different?
Faith includes our beliefs, but it is bigger than that. Faith requires action. If it doesn’t move us to do something or say something – actually take some kind of action – it’s not really faith at all. Until we take action our “faith” is just a bunch of words. As a side note, some people get confused and turned around on this point and try to do good things to generate faith. The last part of that whole faith equation is confidence.
Putting It All Together
So now you can see how belief and faith are interrelated. The difference between the two is subtle. When we believe the truth with enough confidence to take action we exercise faith. And it doesn’t take much of that faith to see huge things happen, even miraculous things. And you can see where unbelief, that is believing things that aren’t true – believing lies – completely clogs up the working of our faith. Unbelief prevents us from ever seeing the miraculous in our lives. Too often we spend time and energy trying to increase our faith We pray and plead with God, begging him to give us more faith.
The good news is that we can change our unbelief into belief. It’s really a fairly simple, straight forward process. We just need to become more fully persuaded of the truth instead of the misconceptions and lies that we are currently holding on to.
The more we expose our minds to the truth, the more we become persuaded and convinced of that truth. However this differentiation will always be subjected to one's discretion of judgement till the mankind is alive.
