Developing Your Faith

Degrees of Faith

Faith can grow.  In fact, your faith can grow exceedingly!

2 Thessalonians 1:3:
We are bound to give thanks for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of everyone of you call abounds toward each other.

We can see below that you can have weak faith or strengthened faith.

Romans 4:19-20:
And being not weak in faith, he [Abraham] did not consider his body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.  He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God.

In fact, you can have great faith!  Here is the story of a man to whom Jesus’ WORD is all the mattered.

Matthew 8:5-10:
Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.” And Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.” The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed.  For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, “Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!”

We see below that you can have little faith. (There are other verses similar to this one.)

Matthew 14:30-31:
But when he [Peter] saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!”  And immediately Jesus stretched His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Even worse, you can have no faith, at least concerning what you are praying for!

Mark 4:37-40:
And a great windstorm arose, and waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling. But He was in the stern, asleep on a pillow.  And they awoke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm.  But He said to them, “Why are you so fearful?  How is it that you have no faith?”

There can be situations where a little faith will not get the job done, but a greater degree of faith will.  In the following case, the disciples, who have not been praying and fasting (which would have kept them sharper spiritually), are unable to do it.  It is not a case of big, powerful demons vs. little bitty demons, since Jesus had already given the disciples power over all demons (Luke 9:1) before this same story appears in Luke 9:37-42.  They had the power and authority to do it; what they lacked was the faith.  Jesus explicitly blamed the lack of results on their unbelief:

Matthew 18:14-21:
And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?  Being him here to Me.”  And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and asked Him, “Why could we not cast it out?” So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.  However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”

This passage is sometimes used to support the unscriptural practice of trying to “pray and fast out a demon,” but Jesus said believers would cast out demons, not fast out demons. The praying and fasting is to stay spiritually sharp so that you stay in faith instead of getting into unbelief. Jesus did not say that the reason why the demon stayed was that it was a great big powerful demon. He explicitly said why – because of their unbelief.  If they had believed when Jesus told them that they had power over all demons, no demon could have stayed when they commanded it to go in His name!

Another example of prayerlessness leading to unbelief is near the end of Jesus’ ministry in the garden, where Jesus urged His disciples to pray so that they would not enter into temptation.  They didn’t pray, so they were weak and they did enter into temptation, even to the point of denying the Lord.
 

How to Get More Faith

There is only one way to get more faith mentioned in the Bible, and praying for more faith is not it!  “Praying for more faith” has been tried, and it didn’t work!

Luke 17:5-6:
And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” So the Lord said, “If you had faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

Jesus did not grant them faith in response to their prayer for more faith. He instead instructed them to use the faith they had by speaking with their mouths.  This theme will be developed more in later lessons.

Romans 10:17: So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

We see from Romans 4:19-20 above that Abraham’s faith was also based on a word from God – His promise. Real faith is always built on God’s Word.  There is no other basis for it. Just because you want to believe something doesn’t give you the right to believe it – only the Word of God does.

Praying in tongues does not give you more faith, either. A careless reading of Jude verse 20 has caused some to believe that you can build your faith by praying in tongues, but the verse actually says, “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit…” The Greek word used here denotes building upon something, not building the thing itself.  Praying in tongues will not build faith itself, but it’s good to build upon your faith by adding praying in the Holy Spirit.

The only way to get faith is by hearing God’s Word!
 

The Measure of Faith

Romans 12:3:
For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.

God is fair. He gives everyone the same measure of faith. The Greek word for measure here, metros, implies a fixed amount, not just a general scoop like a scoop of ice cream.

However, it is clear from the first section that not everyone walks in the same degree of faith. How can that be, if God gives everyone the same measure of faith?  It is like the fact that God gives everyone a certain number of muscles.  I have the same number of muscles that Arnold Schwarzenegger does. However, he could probably lick me in a fight even though he is older. Is it fair that he has better-developed muscles than I do?  Sure – he did something with his muscles that I didn’t do with mine.  It was my choice and his choice, not God’s choice.  Some people have better developed faith than others, but it’s a personal choice, not God’s choice.

Does developing and having great faith give you a reason to brag?  Not at all! Faith comes from God in the first place, not from you:

Ephesians 2:8-9:
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

While this is generally read to mean that salvation is a gift from God, which is a true statement based on other scriptures, a better reading would seem to be that the faith that saved you is not of yourself, but a gift from God.

It is obnoxious for people to go around bragging, “My faith got me this and my faith did that.”  If it weren’t for God, you would have no faith to begin with. “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:31 and 2 Corinthians 10:17). God is the One who gave you the measure of faith to begin with.
 

Faith for Different Things

Is it possible to have strong faith in one area and weak faith in another? Absolutely, just as you can develop strong arm muscles without developing your leg muscles or vice versa.  Since faith comes by hearing God’s Word, your faith for a certain thing will reflect how much of God’s Word you hear on that subject. Faith must always be based on a specific promise or statement in the Bible. Otherwise, you’re just “trying to believe,” which doesn’t work.

You can have great faith for healing but have trouble believing for two nickels to rub together. You can have no trouble believing that your tithes and offerings have opened the windows of Heaven, yet be thrown into bed by every two-bit virus that comes down (or up) the Pike.  We can see in Revelation that certain churches as a whole had certain strengths and weaknesses. If your faith needs shoring up in a certain area, megadose yourself with the Word in that area. Your faith WILL grow because faith comes by hearing the Word.  You won’t be struggling to believe anymore.
 

A Practical Way to Hear the Word More

Recite it to yourself – out loud!  This is hardly a new or original idea.  In fact, it dates back to the Law of Moses:  “You shall teach them [God’s commands] diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.  You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”  (Deuteronomy 6:7-9)  Now before you go write Christian graffiti all over your house, remember that this was written to sinners under the Old Covenant. But the principle remains the same – keep reminding yourself of what the Word says!

God told Joshua: “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” (Joshua 1:8)

This did not mean that Joshua was supposed to go around like a little doggie with a Bible scroll in his mouth. The Book of the Law not departing from his mouth meant that he was to SPEAK it a lot. The word meditate is used here (Strong’s Hebrew word #1897) means to “murmur” (mutter). It certainly does not mean that Joshua was supposed to murmur “om” in the lotus position while visualizing world peace. False religions teach a form of meditation that is based on emptying your mind, which turns into an open invitation for demons.  Christian meditation consists of filling and renewing your mind with God’s Word!

What is the result if you speak God’s Word to yourself all day?  You hear the Word, and faith comes by hearing the Word. So this is a practical way, suggested by God Himself, for you to build your faith!

[On to Lesson 4:  Faith’s Unlimited Potential]
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