And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. Mark 11:22
The simple rendering of Jesus words in today’s text is wonderful. There are some people and things that can be trusted to a high degree, but only God is worth of total trust all the time. But Scofield renders the words Jesus spoke a bit differently: ‘Have the faith that God gives’. That means that God gives us the faith to trust Him, if we will simply take it from Him.
We are often frustrated by our lack of faith, and long, as the disciples often expressed, that the Lord might increase our faith. We recognize our weaknesses, and struggle along, allowing the circumstances and trials of the world get to us, because we try to achieve on our own strength.
What we need to do, to put it simply, is to trust the Lord to increase our faith, to give us the faith that we need. Or to put it another way, have faith in God to increase our faith.
Ephesians 2:8 tells us that it is by grace we are saved through faith. Written in the present tense, that verse is speaking of our daily salvation, not of our moment of conversion, although it ultimately includes that too. We access the grace of God daily through faith. And it is God Who gives us the faith whereby we trust Him and appreciate the amazing grace of God.
We have all admired great men and women of faith, and their stories have encouraged and inspired us. They were truly worthy of praise. But remember that they were not exercising their own faith, they were exercising the faith that they had received from God.
Plead with God today that He might give us of that faith, to trust Him as we ought. -Jim MacIntosh