I love hearing stories about faith. I'm amazed at testimonies of healings and miracles. I read passages of the Bible and am inspired by men like Noah and Abraham. I read through Hebrews 11 and am encouraged by all the people who put their faith in God and saw Him do awesome things in and through them. These wonderful stories of faith all start out with a person who trusts God for the impossible and takes Him at His word, and end with an amazing demonstration of His power.
Over the last few months, I've been asking the question: how can I increase my faith? I wanted to learn how to be faith filled (filled with faith.) It's been an amazing journey of God reminding me who He is and how I can trust Him in all circumstances.
What I soon realised in my quest to become faith filled, was that I was already faith filled. As human beings, we all put our faith in so many things every day. We have faith that when the traffic robot goes green that it's safe for us to drive. We have faith that the meal that we get from a take away restaurant hasn't been poisoned - or even that our favourite chair won't collapse underneath us when we sit on it. People of different religions have faith - they perform certain rituals because they believe it will honour their god. Atheists even have faith (it takes great faith to believe that life was just a giant cosmic accident when all evidence points to a loving Creator.) We put our faith in so many things every day yet sometimes we don't put our faith in God.
What is the difference between other forms of faith and our faith as Christians? It's who we put our faith in. We know that we can trust and rely on our Father God. We know that He is all powerful and is capable of doing 'immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us' (Ephesians 3:20.) Traffic robots may let us down, chairs may let us down, people may let us down but God will never let us down.
In 1 Kings 18:24-38 Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to get him to set fire to a sacrificial bull. The prophets spent hours calling out to Baal - shouting and slashing themselves with swords and spears - but nothing happened. When Elijah called out to God, He burned up the sacrifice and the altar (even though it had been soaked in water three times.) Even though the prophets of Baal had a lot of faith in their god, he had no power. We can put our faith in God knowing that in Him there is power and that He'll always come through for us.
In Matthew 17 Jesus' disciples questioned him about why they couldn't drive out a demon. In Matthew 17: 20 Jesus says: "Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." All we need is mustard seed sized faith to move mountains. It doesn't matter how much faith we have - it's who we put our faith in that makes the difference.
So how do we tap into this faith that we are filled with? We get to know the One who we put our faith in. We read the Bible and see how He proves His faithfulness over and over again; we spend time praying and asking Him to reveal more of who He is to us. We listen to other people's testimonies of how God did amazing things in their lives and we share the amazing things that God has done in our lives with them.
I was scrolling through my Facebook page the other day and a picture that a friend posted caught my attention. The caption said: 'And then I realised how great Jesus is' and showed a cartoon image of a man lying on his back in a puddle of tears with a look of awe on his face. It really made me smile because I know how as soon as we spend time getting to know God better, we are left in awe of who He is.
The better you know God, the more trust you'll put in Him. You'll know His voice and will know when to take steps of faith. You will know when He is calling you to pray for someone or start a ministry or tell someone about Him. You will know His promises and accept them as truth in your life.
So friends, we are all already faith filled. It's just time that we put that faith in the right thing. Seek God more and you'll soon see that 'the one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.' (Thessalonians 5:24)
