Growing Your Faith

INTRODUCTION

When God speaks, everything and everyone hears and responds. He spoke to the wind, the wind heard.

He spoke to fish, fish heard and brought money out. The situation in your life will hear him this morning and will respond.

As I was preparing for this message, I prayed and told God that I don’t want to speak empty words today…he said, you are worried about empty words because you planning the message in your words. Make it my word and it can never be empty.

…You sent your word and it heal their disease. Lord we need your sent word this morning.

The title of my message is GROWING YOUR FAITH. Heb. 11:6.

Luke 22:31-32 And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:

Luk 22:32 But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.

Faith failure is life failure, everything may fail, please don’t let faith fail. Money may fail, career may fail, if all this things fail and faith is still in place, you can still recover all.

Faith is so important that Regarding His second coming, Jesus asked this question: “When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8.

Whenever we hear FAITH! We think of what I call the ‘exercise of faith’. The applications of faith.

“Lazarus come out!” “Silver and gold have I not, but what I have, I give: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth get up and walk!” you must have the faith before you use or apply it.

Why was Jesus concerned about people having faith?

Hebrews 11:6 tells us why: “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

The passage says, it is IMPOSSIBLE! As important as prayer is, it is dependent on faith to work.

Faith comes from greek work that means (1) a firm conviction, producing a full acknowledgement of God’s revelation or truth, e.g., 2 Thess. 2:11,12; (2) a personal surrender to Him, John 1:12; (3) a conduct inspired by such surrender, 2 Cor. 5:7.

Then we need to understand this faith. And if it grows, we need to understand how.

2 Thes.1:3-4. These passage suggests that faith grows, faith can increase. If faith can increase and grow then faith can also decrease and diminish, it can also stay where it is.

Sometimes you look at other people you think that they have more faith than you do. They give more testimonies. You hear other people’s theories on faith you doubt whether you have any faith at all.

DEGREE OF FAITH

When it comes to the subject of faith, is it only a matter of having it or not having it? No, the Bible makes it clear that there are degrees of faith. Jesus described some people of His day as having little faith and others as having great faith.

So it’s good to ask ourselves: How much faith do we currently have? And how dedicated are we to increasing our faith? Our faith needs to be growing. None of us has enough of it.

This also means that faith can be measured, it is measurable. All faith is faith but the measure is not the same.

So how is it possible for some people to have great faith and others little faith?

To be able to answer this question there are Three (3) things we need to understand about faith:

Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

Eph 2:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

1. Faith is a Gift – here we see Faith as a gift from God. We cannot generate it by ourselves. It is not something you have out of your hard work. For if you receive something out of hard work it is not a gift….it becomes a reward. But here faith is a Gift. Then if it is a gift, you must accept it, and must appreciate it.

At this point we receive the same faith. The gift is the same measure for everyone.

2. Faith can be measured

Rom 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

With this we can understand that Faith is a gift and that God have given each one the measure. So, no one can say, you have faith, I don’t. And each of us start with the same size of faith – the measure. God did not start some with Great faith and others with little faith. However what you do with the measure is up to you. God has given everyone the measure of faith, now you can increase, or decrease that measure. It’s up to you. And