Growing Faith

Faith in Christ, is a gift, we receive it when we hear God’s word, Romans 10:17, it is measured out to us by God the Father of spirits, Rom. 12:3, Heb. 12:9. It is our privilege to maintain and use the faith, but it is NOT our job or work to earn it. Maybe the best place to grow in the Faith is in what the Hebrew writer said in, Hebrews 6:1-12, so we do not assume God is going to do it all for us, but that we are convinced cooperation is essential, if we don’t realize we have a part in growing our faith we can become, complacent or confused.

 

Heb. 6:1-ff, “Repentance from dead works”, “Faith toward God”, “Baptisms”, “Laying on of hands”, “Resurrection of the dead” and “Eternal Judgment” are all fundamentals of the faith from God’s perspective.  But from our perspective we might consider other subjects to be more fundamental, like, “What is the nature of the Church” and “Creation v Evolution”, or “Prayer”.  We have this dilemma because of our background being Gentile instead of Jewish, and our environment being 20 centuries removed from the ancient church’s beginning.

 

God wants us to grow in the right direction with His priorities, being our priorities. This is one reason why we have so many ‘faiths’ even in the church.  A personal faith which is strong and having the same united priorities that God’s word has, is what God wants.

 

Whatever our background, we need to be emphasizing the importance of prayer in every attempt to study the Bible. Eph. 3:16-20. Two different subjects in faith we need to be aware of, is this: 

† Facts of the Faith (from God)

      Acts 6:7, Jude 3.

† Feelings in our Faith (from prayer)

      Romans 10:1-5, Acts 15:36-40,

      2nd Timothy 4:11.

Both are essential and good, but in this lesson, we will deal mainly with facts, because they will help shape our prayers to influence our feelings.  An example of this, is how we make decisions about our wardrobe.  For one Christian there is no sin in wearing a particular item of clothing in public, but to another Christian it is clearly a sin.  Why? Because our feelings in our faith are not always in unison with The Faith in God’s word.  Remember, we humans can easily pray about the wrong things. James 4:3.

 

From Peter we learn how even leaders in the church can suffer from not keeping the fundamentals of The Faith in unison with our own personal faith. Galatians 2:9-13. 

 

Remember three things that help us grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus as God wants us to grow:

1. Your real teacher is the Holy Spirit, Matthew 23:8, 1stJohn 2:20-27.

2. Pray sincerely for what God wants as you read, Col. 4:2, 1stTim. 4:15.

3. Consider God’s power & priorities in His word, Mat. 22:29, 23:23.

 

This week’s pointer in Prayer:

Can we ask God to become our personal tutor as we read His word, and thank Him for His love in this?