How Do We Get Faith?

Lately I've enjoyed using biblegateway.com to look up all of the verses that speak on the subject of faith.  Faith seems to have been spoken of in so many different lights, and yet it is a crucial part of, well, our faith.  Case in point.  So I've been trying to learn more about it and how we get it, and the search has been so so good!  It's incredible how much the word of God can enrich one's life.  The truths revealed in the scripture about the Christian life go deeper and deeper the more you dig.

So what have I learned?  Well, I think the most significant thing I've learned is that faith is a gift of God.  It is not something I can muster on my own.  Romans 12:3 instructs us not to think of ourselves more highly then we ought, but in accordance with the measure of faith that God has "assigned" us.  I love John Piper's explanation of this passage.  He points out that faith is what we use to exercise God's other gifts to us.  All the faith we have comes from Him, so we cannot boast about our faith to utilize His grace.  Paul, in this passage, goes on to talk about how this faith and our different gifts are allotted in different measures so that we as the church can lean on and support each other.  We can't stand alone.

Another passage that has greatly intrigued me is Luke 17:5-10.  The disciples, here, ask Jesus to increase their faith, and Jesus' responds,

“If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.  Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’?  Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’?  Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded?  So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”

The disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith, and He reminds them that they should serve Him and do their duty and consider themselves unworthy servants.  God does not grant faith based on our merit, but according to His pleasure.  According to Piper in this article, Jesus is telling the disciples that the quantity of their faith is not the issue.  Even a mustard seed's worth of faith can move a mulberry tree.  The object of our faith is the issue.  If our faith is in God, we don't need much.  His power works with small amounts of faith.  He seems to believe that comparing faith to a mustard seed refers to the amount, or size, of the faith.  I've read other articles, however, that feel there are other qualities of the mustard seed which are referred to in this comparison.

The mustard seed analogy is still somewhat of a mystery to me, but the second part of this passage seems clear.  What the disciples needed was to serve faithfully, utilizing that which God had given them for His glory.  Just as a servant does not expect special favors from their master we must serve gratefully and in humility.  Perhaps in doing so, God will increase our faith, but it is according to His pleasure, not our works.

I haven't finished working through all of the passages on faith yet, but so far I've been blessed by the search for understanding here.  If anyone can recommend a good read on the mustard seed analogy, do share!

The Life of Christ Today

I listened this morning to a biographical audio by John Piper about George Muller.  Derek and I have listened to a few of these free podcasts about different "heroes of the faith" lately, and I've just been so blessed by the testimonies to God's working in people's lives.  If only every person could write a biography and publish it for God's glory to point to the ways that God has been faithful.  It builds my faith so much to hear about God's handiwork in a person's life.  This, I think, is a chief way that God reveals Himself to us today.  

Jesus Christ is not with us in the flesh anymore, but He lives in each of His children and speaks through them (if they are willing) in order to demonstrate the gospel in all of life.  Perhaps this is part of why Jesus said that it is better for us that He return to the Father so that the Holy Spirit might be sent.  While Jesus was in the flesh He was one man, one life, to impact the world of humanity, but now He lives in the form of a mother, a father, a doctor, a teacher, an architect, a banker,...  the list goes on.  I don't think that we are all called to be Jewish rabbis as Jesus was, and so while we are called to be like Him, our calling is also unique and specific.  Perhaps my life is meant to show the world what Jesus' ministry would look like today if He chose to come as a children's ministry director and as a wife.  Or maybe I should phrase that differently... Maybe Jesus DID choose to come today as a wife and children's ministry director.  He chose that when He chose me - just as He also chose to live out His life before the world in an altogether different way when He chose you.  What an incredibly high calling we have!  Not only are we image bearers of the Diety, but we are vessels of His very Spirit.

I think that in my life, I have experienced the growing of my faith most often and most significantly through Jesus Christ's ministry in the life of other people - often through biographies like those of George Muller, Hudson Taylor, Corrie Ten Boom, and Joni Earickson Tada, but also through people who God has placed in my life to live the gospel before me day in and day out.  My father and mother, a couple of professors I had in college, a roommate, a student in my 5th grade class - regular everyday people who were willing to be real before me about their struggles and victories as a believer in Christ.  Through sharing their stories they share with me the gospel as God is weaving it into their life, and I am once again convinced that He IS sovereign and He DOES have a plan and above all HE IS WORTHY!

So there's my sermon for the day...   share your life with someone.  Share your story.  You may never know this side of heaven how God uses it to touch a life.  But I know that without a doubt, He will.  After all, He is the author of our lives, is He not?  And what author desires to keep their work only to themselves?

Here is a quote from John Piper's audio about George Muller in which he quotes Muller.  I found it especially profound:

“He [George Muller] was about to lose a piece of land that he really thought he needed for the next orphan house and said, ‘If the lord were to take this piece of land from me it would be only for the purpose of giving me a still better one.  For our Heavenly Father never takes any earthly thing from His children except He means to give them something better instead.’ That’s not the gift of faith, that’s believing what the Bible says.  ‘No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly [Psalm 84:11]’”  - John Piper

Oh that we would take Him at His word.