How do we live by faith? The truth of the matter is, if you have received Jesus to be your Lord and Saviour – you are already living by faith. By faith we accept the Lord (miracle of salvation). By faith we go into glory (eternal life).
Living by faith is not something you can see or feel. When we live by faith, there is expectation and hope but oftentimes we cannot see the supernatural, we cannot always see what God is doing. But by faith we believe and receive that God is working.
During the Family Weekend, we took some time as a church family to stretch our faith. I asked everyone to get into groups and pray something that was a stretch in our faith. A stretch of something we had given up praying for, a stretch of something we don’t believe could happen – it was an exercise of stretching our faith.
At the end of the session we closed, we had dinner, everything went back to normal. As if nothing had happened at all. However, the 70 of us that were sitting there were sitting in the midst of a miracle. A young man for the very first time in his life invited Jesus to be Lord and Saviour. And in that moment a miracle happened. His spirit was resurrected, the Holy Spirit moved in, angels rejoiced, and he is now addressed for eternity. A miracle in our midst and we had no idea it happened.
Living by faith means giving the miraculous space happen. We like to plan everything. This is our human nature and what we are taught. Faith is saying let’s see what God can do. Put what we believe at the feet of Jesus. The lame, the deaf, the dumb; all we are. By faith we put all things at the feet of Jesus believing that God can do immeasurably more than what we could ask or imagine. We put the broken, we put our fears, our challenges at the feet of Jesus. And have faith that God has an answer, has a way.
This year, I have been challenged to live by faith by praying with the word “somehow”. This has been an increase of my faith. I often pray and ask God to bless my plans. Which means I have thought it through and I see a path. However, prayers of “somehow” are beyond my knowing and understanding, they are prayers of believing in a God whose ways are greater, whose thoughts are higher, and who can do what I cannot even fathom.
As we continue to grow in Increase Our Faith lets us stretch a little bit beyond our comfort zone everyday.
Dear Jesus, Increase our faith. Gives us eyes to see and ears to hear who You really are. Expand our vision and our capacity to believe in the God who created the whole universe. Help us to keep our eyes on you and not on the world around us. We cannot increase our faith without You and Your Holy Spirit. So come Holy Spirit and guides us in this journey. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.