Building Great Faith

Building Great Faith

The adjectives used to qualify faith often make us want to grade faith. Great faith, strong faith, little faith, ever increasing faith, no faith and so on. We interpret that in the light of what each grade can produce. We say things like great faith will give us more 'result' than little faith will. And we conclude that if one's faith hasn't gotten him a bicycle, such shouldn't apply the faith to getting a car. But in studying the subject of God kind of faith closely, we'll find that it's not exactly that straightforward.

Every exploit of faith is done by the mustard seed faith. Jesus said [My Offline Bible] Matthew 17
19 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? 20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

Though we see the grain of mustard seed as small, yet it is the producer of the greatest and the strongest of faith, the biggest of trees rest in that smallest of size grain.

Little faith and no faith are not different. They both didn't produce. On the sea, with the great storm, Jesus slept in the hinder part of the ship and the disciples worried if He didn't care if they perished, Jesus rebuked the storm and queried why they had no faith. Mark 4:40

In Matthew 6,Jesus referred to little faith as that which takes thoughts about what to eat, drink and put on not considering the birds of the air and the lilies of the field being fed and clothed by the Father.

These two 'kinds' of faith 'grades' don't produce anything. Little faith and no faith are same. To consider graduation, we'll expect little faith to at least produce something.

But in Mark 5, we saw the woman with the issue of blood 12 years pressing through the crowd to touch the clothes of Jesus to be healed having heard about Jesus and the power that flowed through His clothes. Jesus reviewed that her faith had made her whole.

Hers may look small compared to the man who said Jesus should speak the word only and his servant shall be made whole, whose faith Jesus called great, never seen in Israel, but her faith even if not that great got her healing. She didn't get a partial healing but perfect healing. Her faith, not referred to as great still produced her perfect healing. Great or not so great faith will still produce whatever the will of God is when demanded!

Faith gets God's power moving to do His will and gets our needs met, either great or small if we get it right!

Where then lies the difference?

Great faith would not need to touch or be touched, it wouldn't need any extensions of physical materials (clothes, water, oil, or any such things or deeds) that may not always be there due to physical limitations or may be manipulated by satanic forces. Great faith rides on the authority of the spoken word of faith.

[My Offline Bible] Matthew 8
8 The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. 9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. 10 When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

Great faith understands the limitlessness of the power and the authority of God and His Word. A power not hindered by whatever physical barriers. It doesn't consider physical rights of religion. The two instances where Jesus Christ used the word 'great' to qualify faith involved people who weren't even Jews! Both of them didn't need Him being physically present, in fact the centurion felt he was not worthy to have him physically present but knew that His words and authority were good enough!

[My Offline Bible] Matthew 15
22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. 23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. 24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. 26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. 27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. 28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

And that is the same lesson Jesus taught us  in Thomas' unbelieving case.

[My Offline Bible] John 20
29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

Great faith takes God at his word. It is not possible to limit it by anything so long the word of God and His authority are present.

Yes, if we touch the hem of His garment by faith we'll be made whole, but that's if we are able to reach the hem. Many would want to touch the anointed man of God, many would want hands laid on them, many would want to use materials from the anointed of God without success until the anointed and materials coming from him become the object of faith and worship....and so they lose their faith in God and in His word...

While that works, and we should enjoy it when available, we may limit our faith to the limits of the availability of the man or woman of God and to the availability of the physical materials. It is also possible that diabolism and demonic manipulations get into these things.

But the word of God and His authority reaches everywhere without barriers. Upon that, great faith is built awakening the power of God to produce the will of God in us even when what we need and ask for looks much larger than what 'our faith' can carry!

If what you need is a brand new car within God's will, once you have the word and God's authority for it, even if you have never believed God for a toy car before, God still expects you to receive the brand new car by faith and He will honor that faith and the glory will be to Him. Why would you ask for a bike that's not in God's will for you just because of some graduation of faith? If you don't have need for healing of 'small' headache but for healing of 'mighty' cancer, once you have the word of His authority for it, your great faith will make you whole without a need to exercise 'faith' for healing headache first!

If we take heed to limiting words, they also limit our faith. [My Offline Bible] Mark 4
24 And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given.

The woman with the issue of blood heard about power flow by touch and the press could have stopped her, the centurion considered the extent of the authority of God's word and didn't have to wait!

Great faith removes every limitation of space, time, status or religion...it breaks the barriers of human manipulation and delivers God's will and greater blessings!

It is built on the simplicity of God's word and His authority! Go for it!

Good morning, have a blessed weekend!