Hebrews 11:6 And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to Him must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.

The Christian faith is a journey of faith because we walk not by sight but by faith. We deal with things unseen and so 2 Corinthians 4:18 says that the things that are seen are temporal but the unseen is eternal. To be firmly established in our relationship with God, we need an encounter. Encounters with God make it impossible to give up on God despite your challenges. If you take a look at those who were once active doing the things of God who later decided they didn’t want to do this, one thing is obvious: They never had an encounter. An encounter gives you more proof of the nature and ways of God. It gives you an understanding of who God really is. So you’re not just going to church but you know God for yourself and have a personal relationship with Him.

Coming back to the matter of faith, we know that we do not see God and so it takes a great deal of faith in our walk with him. Our faith is that which the enemy fights because, without it, we cannot get the full picture of who God is. In 2 Peter 3:18, we are admonished to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is not a stand-alone concept. Faith is acting your belief out. So faith must be supplemented with other things. In 2 Peter 1:5-7, the Bible says, For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. So your faith is seen not just in what you say but in what you do.

For us to grow in faith, we must increase our knowledge of God. When you have the right knowledge about God, you trust Him more because He teaches you more about Him and opens new dimensions of Himself to you. That’s why it’s important that after a soul is won, they be taught the Word in order for them to grow in faith because the end result of faith is the salvation of our souls as said in 1 Peter 1:9.

The faith we received at the time of being born again is not enough for a victorious Christian life, we need to grow it.

And this growth can occur when we know God more through his Word. Faith cometh by hearing and so the more of the Word in us, the more faith we have in Him, and our way of life will consequently be affected because faith must come with works. When we look at Romans 14:1, the Bible says “Accept other believers who are weak in faith.” This means there are levels of faith. If there is weak faith, then there is strong faith.

Looking at the story of the woman with the issue of blood in Luke 8:40 downwards, she pressed through the crowd to touch Jesus’ garment. The woman with a demon-possessed daughter asked Jesus to come into her home while the centurion said Jesus did not need to come to his home but speak the Word for his servant to be healed. So you see the differences in faith level here? One person asks Jesus to come to her house, another said: No, don’t come, just speak and another pressed through a crowd even though she shouldn’t have been among people because of her ailment.

The one who wanted Jesus to come to her house limited the healing her daughter could receive to the physical presence of Jesus. The one who told Jesus to speak entered another dimension of revelation about Jesus, that he didn’t need to be physically present for healing to take place. Then the woman with the issue of blood didn’t even disturb Jesus. Her revelation was on another level, that I can receive from this man without Him seeing me. Then there come some men carrying a paralyzed man in Luke 5:18 and they weren’t bothered by the crowd. They made an opening on the rooftop and passed the sick man through it. This is crazy faith. These friends saw the crowd and took responsibility for the life of their sick friend. They knew there was no way they could have seen Jesus and so they devised a means that was out of the ordinary. They were persistent in their faith and did what no one had ever done. As we get to know God more, our faith increases and we do greater things we never imagined doing for God. Grow in faith.

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