Faith

There are a few chapters in the Bible that have such a strong theme that they are known by one word.
1 Corinthians 13 is known as the Love chapter.  "Love is patient, love is kind... and the greatest of these is love."

Hebrews 11 is known as the Faith chapter, containing the word more than two dozen times.

Luke 15 is sometimes called the lost chapter, containing the stories about the lost sheep, the lost coins, and the lost (prodigal) son.

Faith is important.  It is by grace we have been saved, through faith - Ephesians 2:8.  During the reformation a strong emphasis was put on three 'sola' phrases: Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, and Sola Scriptura meaning Faith Alone, Grace Alone, and Scripture Alone.

This side of heaven, faith and hope will support us through difficult times, but a day will come when God's Kingdom is realized and there will be need for neither, for God will be with his people - Immanuel.

Hebrews 11:1 
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Faith is an interesting word. You may be familiar with the fact that the English word 'love' has three different form in Greek referring to the brotherly 'philos' love, the passionate 'erros' love, and the unselfish 'agape' love. Faith has variations in the opposite direction - the same Greek word can either be translated as faith (a thing/noun) or faithfulness (a description of this noun). Hebrews 1:1 pretty solidly fits the first translation, but other places are a little less clear.

Ephesians 2:8-9

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 

Here faith could mean a couple things. First, it could mean that we are saved through the 'faith' that we have in God; we are not saved by our actions, but through the free gift of grace that we receive through our faith in a God who has given this gift to us.  It could also mean that we are saved through the 'faithfulness' of Jesus - that Jesus was faithful to what God asked Him to do by living and dying to save us.  The two are not incompatible, and it is somewhat helpful to see the truth in both uses of that word.

God's faithful blessings to you this new year!