21. How Do I Live By Faith? (Part 2)

Posted by Conrad on 03.10.11 in Devotionals.

There’s this fallacy that some believe where the less you know about something means the more faith you can have in it. Like it takes more faith that you’ll enjoy a movie you’ve never heard of, or that you’ll enjoy meat from Taco Bell.

The thinking is… the less you know, then the more faith you can have.

But it’s actually the opposite.

Look at it this way, if you have two identical looking cars in front of you, one is your reliable car and one you’ve never seen before and someone asked you to pick one of the two cars to go on a thousand mile drive.  Which one would you have more faith in?

You would put your faith in the car that has proven itself to you.

It’s the same thing with God.  He’s reliable if we have faith in Him or not, but as humans, our faith in God grows the more He proves Himself in our lives.

To explain this in real terms, let’s look at the equation of faith from Part 1 of ‘How Do I Live By Faith’…

Faith = Knowing God’s Word + Believing God’s Word + Doing God’s Word.

…and pretend you’re dealing with a difficult time and you read God’s Word in James 1:2 (which ultimately says, ‘Count it all joy when you face trials cause it grows your faith’).

You know what God’s Word says, and believe God’s Word that says your faith grows through trials, but can you do God’s Word?  Can you “count it all joy”?

Don’t you think you might be able to “count it all joy” more if you can point to past instances in your life where God brought you through difficult times?

Just as the reliable car, where you have faith in the car because it’s started for ten days in a row, you will have more faith in God and His Word the more you can point to all the previous times He’s proven Himself.

And that’s the trick, you have to remember and appreciate all the times God was faithful to you.  If you don’t, that’s like completely forgetting that your car has started for 10 days in a row, leaving you wondering if your car will start or not.

God has us go through sufferings to grow our faith.  But if we get through the suffering without acknowledging His faithfulness – then that means we just went through the suffering for nothing.

So what’s the bottom line in all of this?

Having more faith isn’t knowing less about something, it’s about knowing more about something’s reliability, about something’s faithfulness.

And in the case with faith in God, growth in your faith is a matter of acknowledging His past, present and continuing faithfulness.

The more you see His faithfulness… the more you can appreciate His faithfulness… and the more faith you can have in Him.

JAS 1:2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, [3] because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. [4] Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Take Time To Pray: Praise God for His faithfulness.  List all the areas where God is faithful that we take for granted.