What does “faith” mean?

When Lutherans talk about faith, we are talking about the relationship God’s Holy Spirit creates with us. It’s a relationship where God’s promise of steadfast love and mercy in Jesus opens us to a life of bold trust in God and joyful, generous service to everyone we know and meet in daily life.

Martin Luther was exuberant when he described the freedom of “a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that believers would stake their lives on it a thousand times.” He once wrote, “Oh, it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith. It is impossible for it not to be doing good things unceasingly.”

Faith convictions expressed as statements of belief flow from this confident trust in God. Lutherans share in the faith expressed in the Apostles’, Nicene and Athanasian Creeds.
In them, we confess the Triune God and we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

The Confession of Faith of our Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) identifies the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the basis for our teaching. This Confession of Faith is more than just words in an official document. Every Sunday in worship ELCA congregations hear God’s word from the Scriptures, pray as Jesus taught and come to the Lord’s Table expecting to receive the mercies that God promises.

At the same time faith does not close our minds to the world and our hearts to others. We listen to the witness of others and we watch for the ways God is active in the world around us. Faith opens a place for engaging others in conversation, for seeking the truth, for asking questions and speaking love in word and deed.

Faith is a full life, liberated for a living, daring confidence in God’s grace.