How To Increase Your Faith?

“According to your faith, it will be done to you.” (Matthew 9:29)

Microsoft’s operating system, Windows 7, has been selling for a couple of
years now. When it first came out, I bought a laptop computer for my
daughter preloaded with it. When you first turn on the computer, you have
several days to activate the operating system. Activation is Microsoft’s
way of forcing you to register your product. When you register it,
Microsoft takes an image of your drive, which prevents you from installing
it on another computer. In other words, you can no longer use the same copy
of Windows 7 for every computer in your home.

But there’s another surprise that comes with activation. Some of us don’t
believe Microsoft’s promise that information stored on our computers isn’t
being accessed when we register our software. Up until now, we didn’t have
to register the product to use it. Therefore, if we didn’t trust them, we
just refused to register it. The problem with Windows 7 is if you don’t
activate it after several days, many of the features that come with it will
not work until you do. So while you have an operating system that will
work, you will never get out of it what it was intended to provide unless
and until you activate it.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that faith works very much
the same way. All believers have some measure of faith, but some seem to
have more than others. Why? The truth is I’m not so sure some Christians
have more faith than others. They just seem to use it more. They have
activated their faith with the owner who not only gave it to them, He
purchased it for them.

So how do we who seem to have less faith than others activate the measure of
faith we have? The Bible provides the answers to that question.

First and foremost, we must realize that the faith we have doesn’t just
belong to us. It is a gift and always works in concert with God. This is
graphically pointed out in Acts when Peter healed a crippled man. In fact,
he told him (and us), “By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see
and know was made strong.” (Acts 3:16) Indeed, Peter agreed with something
Paul once said, “Your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s
power.” (I Corinthians 2:5)

Paul also taught us that our faith is directly tied to our knowledge of
God’s Word. “Faith comes by hearing,” he told the Church at Rome, “and
hearing by the Word of God.” (Romans 10:17) In other words, the more we
learn about the power of God, the more we realize how much it can apply to
the problems that come our way.

But James reminds us that we must not just be hearers of the word. We must
apply what we hear. “Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive
yourselves,” he wrote in his letter to Christians in Jerusalem. He goes on
further to say “Do what it says.” (James 1:22) He later concluded that if
we can’t put action behind our faith, then our faith is dead.

So if your faith seems to be little short, maybe you’re not following the
principles outlined in God’s Word. The truth is that God gives each of us a
measure of faith that will see us through life. Remember, “The Lord is good
to those whose hope is in Him.” (Lamentations 3:25)