Although Chutzpah is a Yiddish word – not one of the Biblical languages: Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic – it is an important word for understanding the Biblical concept of faith. Chutzpah is a word that means audacity, gall, nerve, fierce determination, refusing to quit or let go even when you are beat, determined persistence, even rudeness or impropriety.

This meaning-rich word expresses the type of faith that God desires and honors in his followers.

• It was with chutzpah that Abraham negotiated with God for the righteous people of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18).
• It was with chutzpah that Jacob wrestled with God and refused to let go until God blessed him (Genesis 32).
• It was with chutzpah that Moses argued with God for mercy on the Israelite people (Exodus 32).
• It was with chutzpah that Hannah prayed for a child (1 Samuel 1).
• It is with chutzpah that the shepherd David took on the giant Goliath (1 Samuel 17).
• It was with chutzpah that Ruth followed Naomi and won Boaz as her husband (Ruth).
• It was with chutzpah that Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal and with chutzpah that he prayed unrelentingly until it rained (1 Kings 18).
• Jesus taught us that we should approach God with the chutzpah of man who would wake his neighbor up in the middle of the night to get some bread for unexpected guests (Luke 11), or the chutzpah of a child asking his father for food (also Luke 11), or the chutzpah of a widow who doesn’t stop pleading with a godless and uncaring judge until he gave her justice (Luke 18).
• It was the chutzpah that led people to tear open roofs and go against social pressure in order to receive healing that Jesus so often commended (Mark 2 & Mark 10).

May our prayers, our hearts, our relationship towards God be full of the chutzpah that God loves – full of audacity, gall, nerve, fierce determination, a refusal to quit or let go even when we are beat, a determined persistence, even rudeness or impropriety.