How to Develop Your Faith
This is a follow-up to last week’s post. If you haven’t yet, go back and read that one first – Make Your Photo Album. Now that you have a picture of your faith, you are ready to learn how to develop your faith. That picture may not be pretty. I remember taking pictures of my body before jumping into my weight loss program. It wasn’t pretty and it was very hard to look at it. I was looking forward to the “After” picture! You have to use it or lose it.
Yes, your faith is something you can develop, just like working out and developing your muscles and your stamina. Just like developing your body, there are two simple steps in developing your faith.
Step 1
Get a program. That means both a program for eating (healthy diet) and a program for exercising your body. We need to get a picture of where we are health-wise before we can know what program we need to be on.
Read the Program
So we need a program for developing our faith too. That program or guide if you will, is the Word of God.
Romans 10:8, 10 NIV
But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
Developing Your Faith is Life or Death
This statement of “Life or Death” may seem a bit over the top, but you have to understand that the unseen realm is more real than the seen. The development of your faith, being emersed in the Word of God, could mean life or death for you.
Jesus is the program. He is the Living Word of God. So His faith is fully developed. Because His faith was developed, He was ready for any situation.
Matthew 4:4, 7 & 10 NIV
4Jesus answered, “It is written:
7Jesus answered him, “It is also written:
10Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written:
Feed Your Spirit to Develop Your Faith
In reading the Word of God this makes your spirit (the real you) stronger. This is about becoming strong enough so you don’t react (knee-jerk reactions) to situations or circumstances. As you develop your faith you will begin to respond with a natural and confident reflex.
Note: This isn’t just about being able to respond because you are book-smart (I can prove this out by God’s word). But in developing your spirit, this natural reflex is about being spirit-led. Led by the Spirit and not by the head (book-smart).
John 6:63 NIV
The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit[a] and life.
I haven’t used this phrase for a while, but it’s all about that every-day-walking-around-kind-of-life with Jesus. Remember, Jesus is the Word. The Word in the flesh. As we trust the leading of the Spirit of God, we are walking in the word. In other words, we are walking with Jesus every step of every day.
Hebrews 12:2 NIV
…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.
Step 2
Use It (Or Lose It)
Everyone who has tried to develop their body, eating and exercising, knows that it has to be a lifestyle. In other words, if it is not a part of your every-day-walking-around-kind-of-life, you will start losing all that work you put in to reach and maintain your goal.
Developing your faith, again, is the same way. You have to use it, or you will lose it. I want to use two different Bible translations (transliterations) to make the point. This is of James 2:17…
James 2:17 Amplified Bible (AMP)
So too, faith, if it does not have works [to back it up], is by itself dead [inoperative and ineffective].
James 2:17 The Message (MSG)
Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?
I want to close with a story from scripture. It is a beautiful picture of someone acting upon and using their faith. In reading this story, note that the woman had faith. Meaning, she heard about Jesus who we know as the living Word of God. And faith comes by hearing. She heard about Jesus, the Word of God – Romans 10:17. We see this in verse 28…
28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”
Truth Demands Action
We have no doubt that verse 28 is true. But what if she would have never acted on her faith, never acted on the truth, and never touched his cloak? I think we all know the answer to that.
Mark 5:25-34 NIV
And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”
32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
Challenge of the Week
Life or Death? Will the reality of your faith and its development as essential be enough to push you to get in the program (reading God’s Word). To be ready in season and out of season to apply the program (applying/acting on God’s Word)? Use it or lose it. Your life, and other’s lives, are depending on it. So be it.
