Faith By Ryan Dean

If I asked you what faith is, we all know the cliche answer- “The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”, - is the scripture that we point towards and pat ourselves on the back knowing we have answered correctly. The problem is not whether we know what faith is; rather, it lies within the proper use of faith.

For example, water is vital to life itself.  I can know what water is, I can know its physical properties, and I can know the elements that make up the water. However, if I do not use the water, I will never know the blessings that it is filled with. Water can be used to quench thirst, wash things, to cook, and to do a variety of other things.

Just as water is used as a vital part of your natural life, faith is the water of your spiritual life; and many of us are dehydrated of faith. And no, I am not speaking only of faith in Jesus as the savior. I am speaking also along the lines of faith in what Jesus can do!

Being believers is just the start of the walk of Christ. A huge portion of our journey is often times missed by the process of application. If we cannot apply our faith, then it will never be useful for us as believers and in that same note, we will never be able to show others, non-believers, that our God is mighty and miraculous!

Faith is only built off of two premises, facts and Jesus. I apologize if we disagree, but that is the truth. We have countless stories to demonstrate how mighty and faithful our God is. This has nothing to do with how we feel but contextual facts. Faith is not built on feelings or what you think your heart is leaning towards. Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that “The heart is deceitful above all things, as is BEYOND cure. WHO can UNDERSTAND it?

If you understand how the heart works, we know that it changes every day. Our minds change very often, and it could be just simple choices such as what types of food we eat daily. We know that we are hungry for dinner, but our minds change as to what we eat because we are “tired of eating the same things’, or “our tastes change”. If our tastes change that constantly, what does that tell you about our minds on far more important things?

 That is the reason God tells us not to put faith in your heart but put it in fertile ground, which is in Him. He is consistent when we lack consistently, a mighty warrior when we are too weak to fight for ourselves.

What I also want us to understand, is that even if your faith is small and not very strong, there is still a great return on that small faith input. If we read the entire passage of Matthew 17:14 chapter, we find this in action. Because the disciples had so little faith, Jesus told them if they just have mustard seed faith, they would be able to move mountains. This tells us a few things, but I will focus on one. God honors your mustard seed faith by blessing you 10,000-fold. The thing that is wrong with the average Christian, we set the standard at the mustard seed sized faith and never grow from there. Just imagine if we had that mountain sized faith, the blessings and miracles could move the entire world! If we had faith the size of the world the blessings and miracles that could be bestowed on us could be the size of the universe!

I just want to encourage you today to know that just because your faith gets weak, DOES NOT mean that your faith diminishes.  Your faith should only grow as a believer. NOTHING grows without the proper cultivation process. Put your faith in the fertile ground of Father and Savior JESUS CHRIST. You should fertilize your faith with PRAYER, water it daily with the WORD and just sit and watch how the SON shines and blesses you in your daily life.