Dear Family and Friends,

“The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’” ‭‭Luke‬ ‭17‬:‭5‬ ‭NIV‬‬

If you watch the Netflix movie Leave The World Behind you will probably blurt that out too!

I usually don’t watch futuristic films because most are unrealistic. This one is different. It could really happen.

But we don’t need a movie to make us worry about the future. Today’s world news is more than enough to shake our faith.

Faith is having a complete trust or confidence in God.

Are there times when you don’t fully trust that God will provide what you need?

Our hearts want to believe but we just don’t “see” it happening. Life has taught us to believe after we see.

Or maybe we’ve been hurt by broken promises in the past. And we’ve carried our trust issues into our relationship with God.

Or perhaps we just don’t know God well enough to know if He’s trustworthy. Again, life has taught us to look first at a person’s track record.

If these or other reasons hold us back from having an unadulterated faith in God, please know that Jesus loves us and wants our complete trust in Him.

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.”  John‬ ‭14‬:‭1‬ ‭NLT‬‬

So, how do we increase our faith?

Let’s start with this understanding – our faith is a gift, and there’s nothing we can do on our own to increase our faith.

Hebrews 12:2 NLT calls Jesus, “the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.”

Yet despite knowing that faith cannot be gained on our own, many of us tend to look at Romans 10:17 with the hope that reading the Bible will grow our faith.

“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”  ‭‭Romans‬ ‭10‬:‭17‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Unfortunately, growing our faith by reading the Bible is not quite what Paul meant.

The Greek word for hearing means more than simply hearing sounds. It means to not only hear but to receive or accept the message. It’s an inner spiritual hearing that goes with receiving faith from God.

And the word of Christ is not referring to the Bible. Here Paul is referring to the good news of Christ, the Gospel. (See Romans 10:16)

Paul is essentially saying that faith comes from receiving and accepting the Gospel message.

And as for what comes next, the author of Hebrews tells that the perfecting of our faith comes through Jesus. Jesus created our faith and He watches over, cares for and sustains our faith.

So, if Jesus is the perfecter of our faith, what can we do?

We can ask Jesus. Which is what the disciples did in the opening passage above.

When Jesus was asked to increase their faith, this is how He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.”  Luke‬ ‭17‬:‭6‬ ‭NIV‬

Jesus reassured His disciples that only a tiny amount of faith is needed to accomplish great things.

That it’s not the size of our faith that uproots and replants mulberry trees. It’s our all powerful God who does so.

Little faith is much when that faith is in God.

Jesus is giving us the same reassurance today.

We have a tendency to look first at ourselves and our abilities in times of trouble. 

Increasing our faith begins with releasing the trust we have in ourselves. And grabbing tightly to the One who can be trusted.

There’s so much more to say. We will continue this discussion next time.

In love always,