Faith in God is being totally dependent on Him and having a willingness to do His will; with complete and humble obedience; and readiness to do whatever he calls us to do. Faith is being sure and certain that God is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do. When we believe that God will fulfill His promises, even though we can’t see them materializing yet, we demonstrate true faith. [John 20:24-31 (NLT) 24 One of the twelve disciples, Thomas (nicknamed the Twin), [a] was not with the others when Jesus came. 25 They told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he replied, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.” 26 Eight days later the disciples were together again, and this time Thomas was with them. The doors were locked; but suddenly, as before, Jesus was standing among them. “Peace be with you,” he said. 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and look at my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!” 28 “My Lord and my God!” Thomas exclaimed. 29 Then Jesus told him, “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me.”
30 The disciples saw Jesus do many other miraculous signs in addition to the ones recorded in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may continue to believe[b] that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name.]
Faith is a gift from God. [Ephesians 2:8-9 (NLT) 8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.] Faith is given to each of us when we accept Jesus Christ into our lives, but it is up to each of us to develop that faith and do something with it. Even a tiny seed of faith is enough, if it is alive and growing. Knowing Jesus is with us in our suffering and that someday He will put an end to the pain, helps us to grow in our faith.
How do we grow and strengthen in our faith? We first need to hear the Word of God, believe that it’s true and build our faith upon it. As we stay in the Word, faith comes subconsciously. It comes through scripture reading and study, worshipping, prayer, praise and actively following Jesus.
Bayless Conley discusses three levels of faith. The first faith is “no faith”. [Mark 4:37-41 (NLT) 37 But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water. 38 Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?” 39 When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. 40 Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” 41 The disciples were absolutely terrified. “Who is this man?” they asked each other. “Even the wind and waves obey him!”] That’s when we believe God is asleep, disinterested, disconnected and doesn’t care about our situation in life. If we indeed have been saved, we have faith and having “no faith” is impossible. [1 Peter 5:7 (NLT) Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.]
The next level of faith is “little faith”. [Matthew 6:30-34 (NLT) 30 And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?
31 “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ 32 These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. 33 Seek the Kingdom of God[a] above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. 34 “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.] That’s a worried faith. We believe God cares but tend to take over for God, trying to make His promises come true through efforts that are not in line with His directions and guidance. If we ask God for something, and we don’t wait – it shows lack of trust in Him. When we don’t keep our eyes on Jesus’ power our own inadequacies begin to surface and we suffer. Bayless uses a great analogy; “we pull tomorrow’s clouds over today’s sunshine!”
God wants us to work toward “great faith”, which is the third level of faith. That’s when we say, ”Lord, Your Word is enough!” [Matthew 8:5-10 “Lord, my young servant[b] lies in bed, paralyzed and in terrible pain.” 7 Jesus said, “I will come and heal him.” 8 But the officer said, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come into my home. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed. 9 I know this because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say, ‘Go,’ and they go, or ‘Come,’ and they come. And if I say to my slaves, ‘Do this,’ they do it.” 10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to those who were following him, he said, “I tell you the truth, I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel!] We trust God to do exactly what He has promised. God’s Word says it and that is all the evidence we need. We stand on the truth of His Word. So it doesn’t matter what the world says, or what our circumstances look like. We just stay with His Word until our faith turns it into something we can see, and we focus on God and His sufficiency, His care and abundant love for us. [1 Timothy 6:12 (NLT) Fight the good fight for the true faith. Hold tightly to the eternal life to which God has called you, which you have confessed so well before many witnesses.] [Hebrews 11:1 (NLT) Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.]
We should always pursue “great faith”. No one knows more about faith than Jesus; He is the developer of faith, so we need to listen to Him. And the Word shows us what great faith can do, and throughout the Old and New Testaments we see results of each of the three levels of faith. If we focus and rely on God’s faithfulness of the past, we can face our storms, temptations, trials callings and obedience with confidence and “great faith”.
God calls us to be active in our obedience. Growing in faith is a daily process that constantly renews our trust in Jesus, and God wants us to share our strong faith with the world. We, as standers for our marriages, are especially called to share our faith as it pertains to God’s will for our covenant marriages to be healed and restored according to His promises. And if we don’t, we are not doing Christ’s work in the world.
Lord, I pray that each of us will continue to grow in faith; that we would be strengthened by Your mighty power to demonstrate our complete and undying faith in You, the creator and restorer of marriage, the one who hates divorce, forgives our sins and gives us eternal life. In Your Precious Son’s Name, Amen

Posted Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 11:57 pm in Seeds Of Faith.