589 - The God-Ordained Way to Increase Your Faith

Leaving Laodicea

Just Get Out of the Boat!

In almost every area of life, when we commit to a plan of self-improvement, we expect to spend time, incur costs, and suffer strain during the process. It just comes with the territory. Whether we decide to get in shape and eat healthier, or go back to school and change careers— everyone seems to follow the same pattern of sacrifice that defines our struggle, and they seldom complain about it. And when we have achieved our goal, we look back at the sacrifice as a badge of honor, something we are proud of.

Each of us embraces this journey of sacrificing our time, effort, costs, and strain in every area of life except the spiritual. For some reason, when it comes to our relationship with God or our desire for more faith, we must think it comes by osmosis to passive observers because many of us refuse to put in the time required or count the costs to achieve the results. Therefore, we really shouldn’t be surprised when nothing changes, and we’re the same as we were before.

Remember the words attributed to Albert Einstein:

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

So, if you want your faith to grow, you will have to make some changes in your life to position it to grow. Or, you will have to deliberately place yourself in situations where you can experience God’s faithfulness firsthand by voluntarily embracing the testing of your faith and the trials that inevitably follow. And you do that when you choose to refuse to rely on your own resources and commit to only trusting in Him.

After all, this seems to be the Lord’s preferred way of increasing the faith of those who surrender to Him. He seems to put them in situations where they either trust God… or die.

Trust God… Or, It’s Curtains

The Scriptures are packed with accounts of God increasing the faith of His faithful in this manner. Consider the following examples:

• Abraham and Isaac – Genesis 22

• Moses at the Red Sea – Exodus 14

• Joshua and the Battle of Jericho – Joshua 6

• Gideon and His Army – Judges 7

• Daniel and the Lion’s Den – Daniel 6

• Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath – 1 Kings 17

In each of these examples, the people made a choice to trust God, maybe more than they had before, or die. The result was that they experienced greater faith in Him than they could possibly imagine.

So how about you? Are you ready to get out of the boat and walk to Jesus? Or are you content to remain in the supposed security of the boat and cheer others along in their faith journey?

For me, I want to get out of the boat. And I hope you will join me.

To download the slides for this message, click – HERE

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