Have you ever told someone to have more faith when counseling them in a difficult time?
Has someone ever counseled you with the same advice?
While that phrase seems like good advice it’s actually akin to the idea of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.
The Greek word for faith, pistis, defines faith as: Faith involves belief but it goes beyond human believing because it involves the personal revelation (inworking) of God. Faith is always God’s work. Our believing has eternal meaning when it becomes “faith-believing” by the transforming grace of God.
Talk about a revelation. If faith is truly God’s work then it is not something that can be conjured up on demand or more importantly something available only to the spiritually elite.
Ephesians 2:8-9 states:
For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— not from works, so that no one can boast.
In addition Galatians 5:22-23 says this about faith:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.
In my research I have found a major point of confusion is that most people have associated believing in something as being synonymous with having faith in something.
While there is a component of belief in faith, belief by itself is simply a human trait based on past experiences or expected outcomes based on tangible results. Faith is something supernatural, a fruit of the Spirit, that produces something through the one who has it.
James 2:17-18 states:
In the same way faith, if it doesn’t have works, is dead by itself. But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without works, and I will show you faith from my works.
Faith is belief in action. Without faith you simply have man made works or a belief that will produce nothing tangible.
Jesus sums it up nicely in John 15:5:
I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.
So the next time someone tells you to have more faith tell them you’ve got all you’ll ever need.
Frank Turner
Frank Turner is the founder of Break Bread, Break Chains and is the co-host of the following podcasts: Defund The Church, Relative Currency, Politically Entertaining, and Christ over Crypto. He is also the founder and creator of the op-ed site Fake News Syndicate.