The key to a believers walk is their faith level. Our faith can be no, little, much, great, or strong. If you are anything like me, you have to work hard at keeping your faith strong. But, it can be done, and it is the best life. God has assigned each believer a measure of faith, and it is our responsibility to watch over that faith and cause it to grow. Faith is something that can leak out of our lives, and it takes constant awareness to make sure we do all we can to make it grow.
Life's circumstances and pressures we face can create doubt and unbelief, we all face financial struggles, sickness, strife, and sorrow. The only way to combat these enemies is strong faith. When our faith remains strong there is no enemy we can not face. We must do what Paul did, and fight the good fight of faith.
Paul shows us in his letter to the church in Colosse, specifically Colossians 2:6-7. "...just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then YOUR FAITH will GROW STRONG in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness."
4 Ingredients to Strong Faith:
We see that after we accept Christ as Lord we need to go to work on our faith. Faith is crucial to a believers walk. Faith moves, and we must make sure it moves in the right direction.
- Faith must be rooted in Christ. When a plant starts to take root in a ground, you notice that it becomes more stable and grounded. It takes time to get rooted. You have to encounter all seasons of life. Time causes faith to get stronger if you will remain IN CHRIST. The more struggles, joys, and circumstances you walk through with Christ, the stronger your faith will become.
- Our lives must be built on Christ. It is so easy to build our lives around getting houses, making money, education, sports, what we will eat, and raising a family. It is not that those things are all bad, it is when they are out of step with building your life on Christ, it becomes wrong. Our words, time, and money should communicate our life is built on Christ.
- We must learn, follow, and walk out the teachings of Christ. Our passion should be learning the teachings and ways of Christ. If we would take the time and learn the Word of God, we can avoid alot of counseling appointments. we could avoid bad decisions. The scriptures offers practical words of wisdom for the life we live, we just need to take the time and know it. If you know his word, you will get to know Him! His Word is Truth! I would encourage anyone to get with a group of believers and study His word, seek His face, and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you. When you discover a truth for life, apply it...NOW.
- Our words must OVERFLOW with THANKFULNESS. The world we live in is negative. It is easy to get sucked in to that negative world, we must intentionally speak and think grateful thoughts. If we focus our thoughts and language on what is going wrong our faith will get weak. If we focus OUR thoughts and words on what is right, good, and true our faith will get strong.
As we look at this passage of scripture we see strong faith is developed through time with Christ, realizing all decisions flow through Christ, learning and walking out the teachings of Christ and His Word, and maintaining a Thankful Spirit.
The devil will do his best to get you to drift from any of those 4 ingredients to strong faith. We must disallow him from accomplishing that, and move forward no matter the cost. I pray your faith becomes strong this very day!!!!
