How to Increase Your Faith
Mar 30, 2020 2316
Want to grow your faith?
I am often approached by people who want to increase their faith. Sometimes the person asking me is someone who is just starting to be interested in the message of Christianity. Sometimes, the question is asked by someone who has been a lifelong follower of Jesus, but who wants to have a deeper experience in their spiritual walk. No matter who you are, you’ll always be blessed as your faith increases.
How Jesus dealt with a lady called Martha in the Bible gives us a vital lesson on how to increase your faith.
Martha lived in the town of Bethany, near Jerusalem, with her sister Mary, and their brother Lazarus. The family were good friends with Jesus, who seems to have regularly stayed with them on his trips to Jerusalem.
This is what happened after the death of Martha’s brother Lazarus:
Martha’s faith is floundering. She is still blaming Jesus for the death of her brother (v.21). And you can see how Martha is fishing for certainty in knowledge when she says to Jesus, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day” (v.24). However, Jesus doesn’t give her what she is asking for. He doesn’t grow her faith through intellectual knowledge. Instead, he invites her into an experiential relationship with him. He says to Martha,
“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (vv.25-26).
Want to grow your faith? Go deeper into who Jesus is.
There are two popular strategies that people use for growing their faith. One of them is all about doing. Although what you might be doing might be good religious “doings,” like going to church, reading the Bible, and praying, these are not in themselves the key secret to growing your faith. As many people have discovered, you can do all these things religiously and still be frustrated in your endeavour to grow your faith. That’s why Jesus had earlier invited Martha to stop doing and start simply sitting at his feet and listening (Luke 10:38-42).
The second popular strategy for growing your faith is all about knowing. People think that when their knowledge of the God, the Bible, and religious doctrine reaches a certain level, then their faith will become strong and unshakeable. (That used to be me, by the way!) But I’ve known people whose knowledge has been incredible, by whose faith in God has ultimately failed, and some of them have stopped believing in God altogether! That’s why, when people like Martha asked Jesus for more information so that they could believe, he never answered them with more knowledge. He simply invited them into a deeper personal experience with him.
The ultimate answer to how to grow your faith is to better know who Jesus is. You don’t get to know your spouse by doing more housework for her or him. You don’t really get to know your spouse by doing research about them.
The way to better know who Jesus is, is to cultivate and experience his presence in your life.
Those who don’t do that may never experience the joy of faith. Those who do will seeing their faith blossom and grow in all kinds of exciting and unexpected ways.
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