Dear Christian,

Do you ever pray for stronger faith? Do you love the Lord with all your heart but find it difficult sometimes to trust Him? Do you often wonder how your faith in God might increase?

            It sometimes surprises Christians when they learn from the Bible that the most important thing about faith is not faith at all, but the object of faith. On one occasion in the Gospels, the Lord’s disciples asked Him to increase their faith, and to that the Lord replied, “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” (Luke 17:6).

          The Lord’s point is that little faith, even the small size of a mustard seed, is all the faith we need when our faith is placed in Him. And that’s because it is not the amount of faith that makes faith great, it is the object of faith that makes faith great.

          I could have all the faith in the world that by wearing red shoes all my life, God would let me into heaven when I die. In fact, I could have more faith in my red shoes than some Christians have in Jesus, but would faith in my shoes get me into heaven? Of course not! Why not? Because again, the most important thing about faith is not the amount we have but the object of our faith, and the only true object of faith is the Lord Jesus.

          In the book of First John we read,“And this is the confidence we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He will hear us” (I Jn. 5:14). It does not say, “This is the confidence we have in faith.” Jesus is the only legitimate object of faith. There is no power in faith. There is only power in the God you trust. In other words, we are to never put faith in our faith. We are never to trust our trust. We are to trust the Lord!

          Now this is one of those things in the Christian life that we often seem to get wrong. We worry about how much faith we have, and we ask, “Do I have enough faith?” And then if we get past that hurdle, we worry about the strength of our faith, and we ask, “Is my faith strong enough to withstand the storms of life?” And then, if we get over that, still centering on faith and not the object of faith, we’ll worry about the soundness of our faith, and we’ll ask, “Is my faith active enough?” But those things, dear Christian, are never to be our concern. All of that attention to faith is actually a distraction in our Christian lives. There is a little hymn I love to sing entitled, Trusting Jesus. Here is one stanza from that hymn:

Simply trusting every day,

    Trusting through a stormy way.

Even when my faith is small,

    Trusting Jesus that is all.

                                         E.Page

          One night in the Gospel record, our Lord with His disciples, ended up in a boat on a stormed tossed sea. The disciples thinking they were going to drown, in panic woke the Lord out of His sleep. After calming the storm, He asked them the question,“Where is your faith?” This is always the right question. The question is not how much faith we have, or is our faith strong enough, but where is it? In what or in whom are we placing our trust?

          In light of this dear Christian, our need is never more faith, or stronger faith, our need is always a greater vision of Jesus! Whenever we have a problem with faith, it’s not really faith that’s the problem. The problem is we have a small view of Christ, and a greater view of Christ is always the cure. This was the Lord’s cure for the disciples on that stormy sea. Their faith was misplaced. Their faith was not in Him. So what did Jesus do? He stood up in the boat and miraculously revealed Himself to them as the One in absolute control of the wind and the waves. He showed Himself as the One who is Lord of All. What a tremendous revelation of Christ!

          A greater view of Himself is always the Lord’s remedy for the misplaced faith of His disciples, even today! The apostle Paul did not say, “I know what I have believed and am persuaded.” He said, “I know WHOM I have believed and am persuaded that He is able.” True faith really only concerns itself with one thing, and that is knowing Christ!

          In the book of Psalms chapter nine, we see this indispensable key to faith stated in such a clear way. “Those who know Thy name will put their trust in Thee.” In other words, to know the Lord is to trust the Lord. That’s how wonderful Jesus is! As we come to know Him we can’t help but trust Him.

          Sometimes Christians will say something like, “I’m trying to trust Jesus, but I’m finding it so hard to do so.” They may not realize, but those words are actually an insult to our dear Lord. If I came to you and said, “I’m trying to trust you, but it’s so hard. It’s not easy trusting you.” Those words would imply that for some reason you are not worthy of my trust. But dear fellow believer, is it hard to trust Jesus? The answer is no, not when you know Him. Knowing Jesus is the key to trusting Jesus. Jesus is surely worthy of all our trust!

          If a stranger knocked on your door and asked if he could take your children to the park for a few hours you’d say, “No way!” You wouldn’t be able to trust a stranger with your children. Why not? Because he is a stranger; you don’t know him. But if your best friend knocked on your door and asked to take your children to the park, you wouldn’t have any trouble granting that request. Why not? Because although it may be hard to trust a stranger, it is easy to trust a friend. In fact, we can only trust someone as well as we know them.

          So dear Christian, if you find it hard to trust Jesus, the solution is not to work on your faith. The solution is just get to know Jesus more. Ask the Lord to reveal more of Himself to your heart through your study of the Bible. And as He does, you will come to trust Him freely without effort or strain. Our trust in the Lord is in direct proportion to how intimately we know Him. And since trust is never an issue among friends, let us cast our helpless souls upon the One who longs to progressively bring us into a greater friendship with Himself.

          The real issue in the Christian life is never obtaining more faith, or acquiring stronger faith. That faith-centered emphasis is entirely off-centered. May God get our focus off our faith and on to the Lord Jesus! Our solitary perpetual need is always to grow in the heart knowledge of Christ. All the faith we’ll ever need the Lord will supply. The Bible calls our dear Savior, “The Author and Finisher of our faith.” Dear Christian, Jesus will take care of our faith, our part is to just pursue Him. Trusting Jesus is that which spontaneously springs forth from the hearts of those who are knowing Him!

          In the Book of Romans the Holy Spirit tells us that, “Faith comes by hearing the word concerning Christ” (Romans 10:17). You need not pursue faith dear believer, it will come to you! And it will come to you as you pursue the Lord through His Word.

          May God deliver us from the hindrance of going after faith, that we may be free to go after Jesus alone!

Show me Thy face - my faith and love

     Shall henceforth fixed be,

And nothing here have power to move

     My soul’s serenity.

My life shall seem a trance, a dream,

     And all I feel and see,

Illusive, visionary - Thou

     The one reality!

                               Author Unknown

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