As we have been covering our “divinely powerful weapons” that are also called the “fruit of the Spirit,” this week we continue with faith or faithfulness, as the same Greek word is translated for both of these in the New Testament. This could be because if one has faith they will be faithful.
If you were a parent that had been able to provide for your family abundantly with everything they had ever needed, how would you feel if they lived in constant fear of not having enough? How does our Father in heaven feel when we live in fear that He will not take care of His family?
Faith is trust, and our Father in heaven deserves our trust. As we are told in Hebrews 11:6: “Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”
Since we were created for His pleasure, one of the greatest accomplishments we can have as a human being is to bring Him pleasure. Since it is not possible to please Him without faith, to have faith in Him and always be seeking to increase it is one of the most important things we can do. We can bring pleasure to the Father today simply by trusting Him.
Faith is a gift, but growing in faith is something He has enabled us to do, just as growing in the fruit of the Spirit is something He has given us to do. We do this by cultivating the seeds God plants in our life.
We are told in Psalm 37:3 to “cultivate faithfulness.” Cultivating can be hard work, but it is also so rewarding that people take great delight in growing things, or tending gardens. This is likely because man’s first job was to cultivate the Garden of Eden, so we were made to be connected to the earth in a special way.
Cultivating faith is even far more rewarding than raising a productive garden, and the fruit of the Spirit that we cultivate and grow will last forever. However, cultivating is much more than just throwing some seed out and coming back in a few weeks to collect the produce. Cultivating requires preparing the soil, planting the seeds at the right time, watering them regularly, keeping the birds from eating them, and then keeping the weeds from choking out the plants as they grow, just as the Lord explained in the Parable of the Sower. So how do we do this with faith?
First, we must value the treasure that faith is and the fruit that comes from it. When we are quickened by a word, it is a seed from God being sown in our hearts. We treasure it by taking care to cultivate it as needed. If the word is to produce actual faith in us we must water it, protect it, and care for it as it grows until there is fruit. Receiving the seed, the understanding, is a beginning, but the job is not done until there is fruit.
We must always keep in mind that faith is in a Person, God, not just in an outcome. True faith comes from seeing who He is and where He sits above all rulers, authorities, or any conditions in heaven or on the earth. Faith believes and acts on the fact that nothing is impossible for Him.
In Romans 10:17 we are told that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” This is a word from Him that is quickened to us by the Holy Spirit. When the Lord speaks to us to do something He imparts the seed of faith to do it. We must join faith in Him to this.
This does not mean that we don’t have doubts, but we do not let the doubts control us if we walk by faith. Doubts, if we allow them to, will take our focus off of the One we must follow and puts it on us. It’s like Peter being able to walk on the water as long as he kept his attention on Jesus, but when he looked at the water he began to sink. We lose faith when we take our eyes off of Jesus.
God wants us to do things for Him, but He also wants to do things for us, and He especially wants to answer our prayers. God, who cannot lie, states this over and over in His Word. Having faith to receive from God was a main emphasis of Jesus’ teachings. Nowhere does God say He will only answer perfect faith, or even big faith. In fact, He said that if we just have the faith like a tiny little mustard seed it could move mountains. This also speaks of how faith is a seed that must be cultivated.
Cultivating faith so that it grows and bears fruit should be one of the highest priorities in our life, but it may take even more faith to understand we are not going to be perfect, or do anything perfectly in this life, and our faith does not have to be perfect. This is an important point because having doubts does not mean that we do not have faith. Just as courage is the ability to overcome fear and not let it control, faith is the ability to overcome fear and doubt by not letting them control us. Faith is not a feeling, but an action, and we are called to live by faith, not by fear.
© 2021 Rick Joyner. All Right Reserved.
