Do You Need More Faith?
This is perhaps one of the most common questions asked by a Christian. Because they do not regularly see the miraculous manifestations of God’s promises, they automatically conclude that they simply need more faith. Actually the opposite is true.
The Lord described faith as a mustard seed, saying, If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, Remove from here to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. [Matthew 17:20] Therefore, all you need is faith the size of a mustard seed, and nothing shall be impossible to you.
When the apostle Peter walked on water as it is written in Matthew 14:28-31, Jesus described his faith as being little. O you of little faith. Why did you doubt? So, if Peter used a little faith to walk on water, how much more faith do we need?
The truth, brothers and sisters, is that we don’t need more faith. We need to use what we have in a greater way. In other words, our faith needs to be pure without the corruption of unbelief to negate it.
In Matthew 17: 14-21, the Lord taught this very same principle to His disciples. When Jesus, Peter, James, and John had returned from the mount of transfiguration, they were met by the father of a lunatic boy who came to the Lord for help because the other nine disciples could not cure him. The Lord then scolded His disciples, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Jesus then cast a demon out of the boy and afterward, when they were apart, they asked Him, Why could we not cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief. For truly I say unto you, If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, Remove from here to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
According to the words of Jesus Christ, the reason for their failure was an unbelief problem—not a faith problem. They obviously had faith; otherwise they wouldn’t have tried to cast out the devil from the boy. Furthermore, the disciples had seen and performed many miracles in the name of the Lord beforehand, so why was this any different?
I know that some Bible versions translate this passage as the Lord saying, “Because you have so little faith.” [NIV] My only comment is that I believe that this passage is not correctly translated. The verse is correctly translated Because of your unbelief because of what the Lord said in the following verse, If you have faith as small as a mustard seed… [NIV] Here, the Lord contrasts unbelief and faith. How could it have been a “little faith” problem if, as the Lord taught, all they needed was faith as small as a mustard seed then nothing would be impossible? Surely, casting out a demon is covered under this. The Lord’s words Because of your unbelief directly oppose the assertion made by the translators that their failure was due to having only a “little faith.” It’s amazing how the translators of this version of the Bible missed this. A third grader can tell when someone has contradicted himself, but they could not see that by their translation, they caused Jesus to appear to contradict Himself.
What the Lord is teaching us through this passage is that although you can have faith, unbelief can override faith and nullify the power of God being manifested. Additionally, He teaches us that faith and unbelief are not mutually exclusive to one another. Many people believe that faith cannot coexist with unbelief; thinking that either you have faith or you have unbelief. The Scripture, however, does not teach this. Mark’s account of the same event illustrates the father’s struggle with unbelief while believing at the same time: And immediately the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help my unbelief. [Mark 9:24] If faith and unbelief were mutually exclusive of one another, we can rightly assume that Jesus would have corrected him in light of his statement. Clearly, the disciples’ actions proved they had faith, but it was their unbelief that hindered the power of God to operate.
Let’s imagine that you have a wagon with a team of horses attached to one end, and an equal team of horses attached to the other. When you command the horses to move forward, they are exerting a great amount of force upon the wagon, but with equal force being applied in opposite directions, the result is zero—the wagon doesn’t move. This is the consequence of unbelief—it negates the faith you are exerting because it applies an equal amount of force.
Unfortunately with many Christians, their team of horses representing faith, although containing the same power, is greatly overmatched by a tremendous team of horses representing unbelief. The truth is that most people—especially in the United States—have been and are in a perpetual baptism of unbelief. They watch the news and read the newspaper, filling themselves with all the horrible events in the world. They listen to the talk shows filled with strife; they listen to what their co-workers and neighbors say, complaining about the boss or gossiping about another person. They hear about family and friends who are sick. They watch all the rotten things on television, listen to the destructive music played on the radio, read the latest Danielle Steele or Steven King bestseller, spending the majority of their days bathing in strife, envy, lust, confusion, and unbelief.
Then on Sunday, they dust off their Bible and go to church either fighting to stay awake during the service, or thinking about what they want to do after their one hour of sacrifice in church. With all these negative things dominating their existence, yet they wonder why they have no power and victory in their lives. They complain, “I asked God to give me peace, so why don’t I have it?” The Bible in Romans 8:6 answers this question: For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. And also in Isaiah 26:3: You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you.
As I illustrated with faith, unbelief is a seed as well. And because it is a seed, it bears fruit after its own kind. Matthew 13: 3-9 accounts the Lord’s teaching on the parable of the sower. The Lord said that the seed is the word of God (Luke 8:11) and therefore we know that He is talking about good seed. However, in verse 7 He said, But other fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up, and choked it. When the Lord explained the parable to His disciples [v. 22], He said, He also that received seed among the thorns is he that hears the word, and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.
When you meditate on this teaching, you must ask yourself, “How did the thorns get into the ground?” Thorns are the fruit of a seed like anything else—although thorns represent bad seed that has been sown either prior to receiving the word, or after. Either way, bad seed always produces something that will choke the word. An important fact to consider is revealed when the thorns choke the word, the person, not the word, becomes unfruitful. This destroys any claim that the word doesn’t work or isn’t working in a particular situation. The word of God will always bear fruit. But, as the Lord illustrated, the word can be stolen, scorched, and choked because of the condition of the ground upon which it is sown.
Jesus said, The tree is known by its fruit. [Matthew 12: 33] In this passage, the Lord is referring to man. Therefore, if you plant a garden, I don’t need to be present from the beginning to know what kind of seeds you planted. I can just come back in a few weeks and see what has grown and then I can tell what you planted. If I see corn, then I know you planted corn and so on. Oh, you may have a few weeds here and there, but if you’ve tended your garden and protected it from being overtaken by weeds, and kept the fowls of the air away, you will have a good harvest.
The Christian life is the same way. If you’ve planted good seed into good ground, and have tended the garden by not allowing any weeds to take root (this is key here) and have taken the necessary steps to keep the fowls away, you too will bear good fruit. Conversely, if I see depression, fear, anger, bitterness, murmuring, jealousy, and sickness in your life, then I know what kind of seeds you have been planting in your garden. The Bible says, Be not deceived. God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. For he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. [Galatians 6: 7-8] These are two very important keys concerning what I’m teaching here about allowing unbelief into your life.
I have these weeds in my yard and they produce dark red berries. One day I see a few and I pull them up, then I see another the next day. What’s interesting is that these weeds grow near fences and under trees. I was wondering how they seemed to grow in such numbers and the Lord showed me that birds eat the berries from the weeds and the seeds of the plant are released in the bird’s droppings. The same is true in your garden, the fowls of this world have eaten bad seed and want to dump it (pardon the pun) into your garden, thereby reproducing the same kind of weed.
For the most part, we cannot completely protect our garden from birds and we cannot, short of removing ourselves from the world, fully protect ourselves from the fowls of this world. But this is where the second key comes in. The key is to not allow those weeds to get rooted in your garden. Things of the world will be planted in your heart, but they do not have to stay and get rooted in you.
The Bible says, For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. [2 Corinthians 10: 4-5]
My mom used to have an azalea flowerbed filled with those lovely white rocks. She would have my brother and I periodically pull weeds from it. I learned very quickly that the small weeds—the ones that hadn’t been deeply rooted—were the easiest to pull out. My mom was adamant about pulling weeds, telling us to pull them up from the root, and not the top. You see, you can cut weeds and they may not be that visible, but they are still present and will grow, often at a much faster rate than what you want to grow. Additionally, they will become deeply rooted in your garden and therefore, very difficult to uproot without digging very deep. This is why the Lord in His teaching about the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13: 24-30) said the man did not want his servants to gather the tares too soon as he knew that the tares had taken root, and digging them up would endanger the life of the wheat.
The lesson in all of this: As much as you can, protect your heart from the things that produce unbelief; and don’t allow any of those things to take root in your heart. Instead, fill yourself with heapings of the word of God and your little mustard seed of faith will prove to be the predominant aspect in your life.
Finally, many people have taken the last part of 2 Corinthians 10: 5 bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ to mean that obedience to the law is what produces the good ground. This is not so and violates what the Lord taught in Matthew 13. It is the good ground that produces the abundant harvest, which includes the manifestation of holiness or Fruit of the Spirit. And as Jesus said, the good ground is he that hears the word and understands it, which also bears fruit and brings forth some a hundred, some sixty, some thirty.
What this passage means is that everything we take in should be measured against the word of Christ. If what we take in is in agreement with the word of God, then we keep it. If not, we cast it down.
The Measure of Faith
Do all of us have the same amount of faith? Many Christians assume that if one person is realizing more victory than another, they were simply given more faith. The Bible says, For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith. [Romans 12: 3] What the apostle Paul is teaching is that because one person is experiencing the promises and blessings of God in a greater measure than others, they should not think themselves to be better than anyone else as God has distributed to every man THE [same] measure of faith.
According to Scripture, every person who has been born again has been given the faith of Christ. The apostle Paul wrote it this way to the Galatians, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. [Galatians 2:20] Not only did Paul live according to the righteousness of Jesus [Philippians 3: 9] but also by the faith of Jesus.
Furthermore, Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:4-9 that there exists only one faith and it is given according to the same measure as was given to Christ when He received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace according (or in proportion) to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Therefore, we can conclude from what Scripture teaches that every Christian has been given the same faith as Jesus Christ.
If saying you have the same faith as Jesus is too much of a stretch, then I offer you these passages of Scripture that confirm that at the least, you have the same faith as the apostles. The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1: 11-12, For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end that you may be established. That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith of both you and me.
Paul plainly states that his faith was common and shared with those who would read the letter. I don’t have to remind you that Paul, using his common faith, wrote over half the New Testament, raised at least one person from the dead (Acts 20:9-12), and performed special miracles, healing the sick with handkerchiefs from his body (Acts 19: 11-12).
While having the same faith as the apostle Paul, we also have the same faith as the apostle Peter. Peter addressed his second letter in this manner: Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. [2 Peter 1: 1] Those who read this letter are ones who had obtained (by grace) like or similar or the same precious faith with them (the rest of the apostles and believers). Using his similar faith, Peter walked on water, gave healing to a lame man (Acts 3:6-7), raised a woman from the dead (Acts 9:40), and healed the sick with just the cast of his shadow (Acts 5:15-16). Furthermore, by faith, Peter saw visions from God, which led him to preach the gospel to the Gentiles.
Even if we cannot stomach the fact that we have been given the same faith as Jesus, we can see clearly that the apostles were aware of these truths and they were able to do mighty things for the kingdom of God and the furtherance of the gospel.
Being Strong in Faith
Although every Christian has been given the same measure of faith, there are those who seem to be stronger in faith than others, which allows the blessings and promises of God to be much more abundantly revealed in their lives. This would seem to harmonize with a doctrine that teaches that our faith can grow or become stronger. However, the Bible doesn’t teach that our faith grows or becomes stronger, but that we become stronger or built-up in faith in a greater or stronger way. Hence, we have this passage of Scripture from Jude 20-21: But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
It is not my intent to use this space to split hairs over what appears to be an insignificant issue. However, it is important that we understand that we have been given the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ—the same faith that empowered His life and ministry; and that we need no stronger or greater faith than His. What we do need is to be stronger in the faith that we have.
So what does it mean to be strong in faith? Many critics of those who walk by faith insist that they deny natural truths—refusing to admit or submit to physical reality. On either side of the way of truth in Christ, there are two ditches. One ditch is where people base their entire lives and faith based on archeological and physical evidence, saying their faith isn’t blind, but based solely on tangible proof and logic. Therefore, they are like the apostle Thomas who said, Except I shall see the in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. [John 20:25] In the other ditch, there are some whom have taken the truths of faith and perverted them, causing many to fall into what’s called the “Name it-claim it; blab it-grab it” ditch. These folks have been taught that the whatsoever the Lord said we could have (Mark 11: 23) was anything we wanted—even if these desires violated God’s word.
However, true godly faith does not deny the existence of physical reality; but rather, it trusts in the greater reality of spiritual truth, which is the word of God. Hebrews 11:3 says: Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
As I discussed previously, spiritual truth is the parent force of what is real in the physical world. Furthermore, spiritual truth is eternal while physical truth is temporary; and since spiritual truth created everything in the natural realm, it is given much more weight. The Bible says this, While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. [2 Corinthians 4: 18]
Therefore, a person who is strong in faith places a greater reliance and trust in what he cannot see (spirit) than what he can.
Perhaps the greatest example (other than the Lord Jesus) of a person who was strong in faith was Abraham. At the age of 99 years, God promised that he would be the father of many nations (Genesis 17:4). At least fifteen years before, (Genesis 13:15-16) God had told the then childless Abram that his descendants would be as large in number as the dust of the earth. After God made His covenant with Abraham, promising a son by his wife Sarah, Abraham fell on his face and laughed at what God had said, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is a hundred years old? And shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? [Genesis 17:17]
However, Abraham did not fail to believe God’s word as it is written, Who against hope believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall your descendants be. [Romans 4: 18] Abraham did not deny the fact that he was too old and also that Sara was beyond her years of conceiving a child (physical realities), but he simply did not consider them in light of what God had said (according to that which was spoken) to him.
Therefore, being strong in faith is directly proportionate to the distance you have placed between your reliance upon the word of God and what is true in the natural. This doesn’t mean that spiritual truth and natural truth are constantly at odds as some would suppose. Your life is like a set of balances with faith on one side and unbelief on the other. If you give the word of God greater weight than what may appear to be true in the natural, then the Bible says that you are walking by faith.
Let’s take a court case, for example. There are two kinds of court cases: civil and criminal. In a civil case, a jury or judge weighs the evidence presented and determines the verdict based on what’s called the preponderance or weight of the evidence. However, in a criminal case, a verdict of guilty must be rendered without reasonable doubt, meaning that the evidence of guilt is overwhelmingly strong to prove the case. A person who is strong in faith is even greater than the criminal case, in that he places such a great reliance upon the word of God that there is no doubt at all.
As with Abraham, a person strong in faith does not even consider physical reality when measured against the word of God. And you must know what the word 'consider' means in relation to this. To consider something means to ponder, dwell, or meditate upon. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead when he was about a hundred years old, neither the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. And being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able to perform. [Romans 4: 19-21]
Similar to Abraham, the centurion was strong in faith because he understood the power and authority of God’s word. Speak the word only, he said, and my servant shall be healed. [Matthew 8: 8]
Unfortunately, most Christians are in the weak in faith category, placing the greater weight of truth on what the doctor says, what their bank statement says, what the news media says, how they feel, and what they can detect with their physical senses rather than what God’s word says. The Bible refers to these Christians as carnal. It’s like they’re looking into a natural mirror where everything is reverse. While the person who is strong in faith says, “The doctor says that I have cancer, but the word of God says By His stripes I was healed,’’ the person weak in faith says, “I know the word of God says that I was healed, but the doctor says that I have cancer.” Therefore, being strong in faith all depends on where you put your but. All kidding aside, the Bible teaches that you become stronger in faith through studying the word of God as the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman who needs not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. [2 Timothy 2:15]
Additionally, you become stronger in faith through exercising your faith, which is an issue I will discuss in the next teaching. But the Bible refers to a mature Christian in this manner, But strong meat belongs to them that are of full age, even those who reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. [Hebrews 5: 14]
Finally, the person who is strong in faith always gives the glory to God in word and in demonstration. In word, this is done through thanksgiving. The Bible says, As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. Rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. [Colossians 2: 6-7]
The demonstration part is accomplished when God is glorified in us as we experience the victory He died to give us, or in other words as it is written in 2 Thessalonians 1:12, That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
And we know from verse 11 that this glory is directly related to the fulfillment of the good pleasure of his goodness. I want to stress this point: God gets pleasure when His goodness is fulfilled in us. When the lame walk, the deaf hear, the blind see, the bound are set free, and his people are prosperous, God is glorified. So when someone claims that God is being glorified through a person with cancer, marital troubles, or physical handicap, they are not claiming biblical truth because these afflictions do not reflect God’s goodness. If you look in the ministry of Jesus, God was never glorified in a person’s affliction; rather, He was glorified when healing was brought forth. Jesus never laid hands on the blind and said, “Be lame.” He didn’t tell the sick, “Your faith has made you cursed.”
I think everyone would agree that these afflictions are not good, and certainly no one would claim that God is glorified through sin, which also is not good. Therefore, to claim that sickness, poverty, and other so-called “thorns in the flesh” is the same as claiming that sin gives glory to God.
The Bible says, Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good and perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. [James 1:16-17] Only religion can come up such a perverted view of the gospel, making God responsible for sickness and other troubles.
