Building Faith

How is Faith Perfected?

/ Michelle Halloran / 2 Comments
six seedlings growing from soil

Photo via iamharmony.org

Hebrews 12:2 tells us Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith. Our faith begins in and through Him and as we grow in Christ, He will perfect our faith. Therefore, our focus is not how we can increase our faith, but rather it’s how we can grow in Jesus.

“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.” –Hebrews 12:1-3.

This scripture reveals 3 keys for growth in Jesus:

  1. Laying aside all that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles us.
  2. Run with endurance the race set before us. Never giving up, no matter how hard the journey gets.
  3. Fixing our eyes on Jesus. He is our goal, our example, and our leader. He goes before us preparing our path, setting our pace, and fighting all obstacles in our way. All we must do is follow Him, trust Him, and obey Him.

As we grow in Jesus, He will perfect our faith. The word ‘perfecter’ comes from the Greek word ‘teleiōtēs’ which means finisher. Jesus Christ gives us all a measure of faith. Matthew 17:20 compares faith to a seed. So when He plants the seed within us, He will finish the work He started. We yield to Him and He cultivates and prunes and perfects the faith He placed within us.

Do you realize this revelation takes away all pressure? Pressure to perform, pressure to always do the right thing, pressure to always say the right thing – all pressure – is lifted from our shoulders when we grab hold of this truth.

Have you ever felt this pressure? When my Dad was sick, I put myself under so much pressure thinking that if I prayed the right way or studied the word more or attended a particular church service that God would answer my prayers and heal my Dad. So, what I was doing was focusing more on what I could do to perfect my faith and what I could do to heal my Dad rather than what Jesus already did to bring healing to my Dad.

Faith cannot be bought. Faith cannot be earned. We cannot manipulate God into answering our prayers. Jesus paid the price and as we grow in Him we better understand His love and His will towards us which is always good. We trust and obey and rest in Him.

It’s not our perfection that moves mountains, it’s faith which is perfected by Jesus! It’s by faith we’ve been saved, not by works so no one can boast. And if we’re going to boast, let it be about Jesus because it’s in Him we live and move and have our being!

Zooming out from this scripture, we can see Hebrews 11, the chapter before our verses above. This is the faith chapter of the bible. All the great heroes of faith are mentioned here. Let’s look at a few examples.

  • Enoch – Wow! He must have been a man of great faith because he didn’t even taste death. He was just walking with God one day and up to heaven he went. Impressive!
  • Noah – Ah, the only righteous one in a world full of wickedness. But what about the time he got drunk and naked? I would think that’s some questionable behavior, don’t you think?
  • Abraham – The patriarch of faith, right? He was going to sacrifice his own son at the command of God until God faithfully provided a ram. But if I remember correctly, he lied about his wife Sarah saying she was his sister just so he wouldn’t be killed. Hmm…
  • Sarah – The mother of nations all because God healed her barrenness. But didn’t she laugh and mock God when He said her descendants would be as numerous as the stars? Naughty, naughty.
  • Jacob – The great deceiver who stole his brothers birthright and inheritance.
  • Rahab – A harlot.
  • Samson – A wild child.
  • David – Committed adultery and murder.

How did all these people make it into the faith chapter??? These people messed up. Big time. Just like you and me, right? These are real people with real problems, but they are listed in the faith chapter because they let Jesus finish what He started in them.

They took a risk. They dared to believe. They took a leap…
…of faith. And Jesus caught them, carried them, and placed them into their destiny! Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith because He alone is FAITHful!

In conclusion, I want to show you a powerful illustration:

Imperfect faith —> Impossible

Imperfect faith makes things impossible. This happens when I feel like I’m responsible for producing faith. But when we take ourselves out of the equation…

I’mperfect faith —> I’mpossible

and we yield to Jesus, we get…

Perfect faith —> Possible

Jesus perfects our faith and makes ALL things possible! Amen!!!

“If you have faith as a mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it shall move; and nothing shall be impossible to you.” –Matthew 17:20

Can you Build Faith Like You Build Muscle?

/ Michelle Halloran / Leave a comment
adonis-boys

Photo via faithandfitness.net

God has allotted to each a measure of faith. –Romans 12:3

The Lord impressed upon me recently an powerful analogy of faith. He showed me faith is like a muscle in both function and development. As I began researching the muscular system and studying God’s Word about faith, I was amazed at the similarities.

God has given each of us a measure of faith. It’s up to us on what we will do with it. The same way we build guns of steel, we can build mountain-moving faith!

Do you want to know how? If so, keep on reading!!! We are going to uncover three functions of faith and discover two keys on how we can build more faith.

FUNCTION

Action

The primary function of all muscles is movement. Likewise, faith causes us to move. 

I recently heard a message preached by Bill Johnson, the pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California, and he said prayer is removing the obstacle. Faith is going in and taking possession.  You may have heard the old saying, prayer is asking for rain, but faith is carrying the umbrella. This picture shows us faith is always accompanied by action.

Muscle without movement is dead. In the same manner, faith without action is dead!

“Faith, by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead… Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.” –James 2:17, 21-22

Position

The secondary function of our muscular system is the maintenance of posture and body position. Did you know that the muscles responsible for our body’s posture have the greatest endurance of all muscles in the body? Those muscles hold us upright all day and they seldom tire or weaken.

Similarly, it is our faith that holds us steadfast at all times. Our faith grounds us like a deeply rooted tree which will not be shaken when the winds blow. Paul illustrates this perfectly in the verses below.

“Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming. ” –Ephesians 4:13-14

Did you notice the call to the body of Christ to be unified in faith and that our stature belongs to the fulness of Jesus Christ? When Jesus fills our stature, nothing can shake us!!! Faith is literally our back bone!

“But let him ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let now that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” –James 1:6-7

Perspiration

The final function of our muscles is the generation of body heat. When we exert ourselves more than normal, the extra muscle contractions increase our body temperature. As a result, with strenuous exercise, we sweat. We perspire in an effort to cool us down.

By the same token, our faith in the name of Jesus stirs a fire within us. It should burn in our hearts just like the prophet Jeremiah spoke of in the scripture below. Our faith should cause us to declare His name everywhere we go. To pour out the living water of Jesus that is within us.

“But if I say, ‘I will not mention His word or speak anymore in His name,’ then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.” –Jeremiah 20:9

GROWTH

Resistance

Skeletal muscle is the most adaptable tissue in the human body. Muscles grow as a result to trauma to the muscle fibers due to intense exercise or resistance training. As part of the repair process, new muscle protein strands are formed causing growth of the muscle.

Resistance is one of the two main keys to building our faith, as well. Matthew Henry, a renown bible commentator,  states, “Afflictions are God’s threshing-instruments, designed to loosen us from the world, to separate between us and our chaff, and to prepare us for use.” Resistance and afflictions teach us to trust God as a good Father. It teaches us to lean on Him and not on our own understanding.

But even though resistance will come, God promises to never give us more than we can bear. Like any good personal trainer, God always proportions the resistance to our strength. It may not feel good in the moment, but our faith pushes us through and we come out much stronger than before.

“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of our faith produces endurance.” –James 1:2-3

Repetition

Muscle growth occurs when the rate of muscle protein synthesis is greater than the rate of muscle protein breakdown. A single bout of exercise stimulates protein synthesis within 2-4 hours after the workout and may remain elevated for up to 24 hours. However, it takes weeks to months for the muscle growth to physically manifest.

Just like you can’t build guns of steel overnight, you can’t build mountain-moving faith overnight either. Building muscle requires much repetition and building faith requires much repetition. There are many scriptures throughout the Bible that support this, and I’ve listed a few of my favorites below.

“Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” –Romans 10:17

“And the word of the Lord will be to them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.” –Isaiah 28:13

“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” –2 Corinthians 3:18

Do you see all these repetitions? Faith grows by getting God’s Word deep within your soul. Faith grows by searching Jesus out through the scriptures and communicating with Him  daily. Any serious body builder knows it takes commitment, dedication, and an established training routine to be successful. So, if you want to build mountain-moving faith, you must have a similar passion to daily seek the Lord with your whole heart.

When you seek Him with your whole heart, there you will find Him. And there He will begin building precept upon precept, truth upon truth. You see… He has to open your eyes to see and your ears to hear first. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) Then He will begin opening blind eyes and deaf ears through you. 

With Jesus All Things are Possible!!!
I Can Do All Things Through Christ Who Strengthens Me!!!

I don’t know about you, but I am pressing in to Jesus with everything I’ve got! And if you want mountain-moving, miracle-working faith then I encourage you to press in to Jesus with everything you have too! How awful to hear the words, “O ye of little faith.” Let us be a people known for our GREAT faith! 

Luke 17:6 says, “If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea’; and it would obey you.” A mustard seed is tiny, tiny, tiny. Almost the size of the tip of a sharpened pencil. But did you know that the mustard seed, when planted and cultivated, grows into a big tree and ‘that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches‘? (Matthew 13:31-32) God has given us all the seed. It’s up to us on what we will do with it. Now that’s something to think about!

Be Blessed!

 

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