How To Strengthen Your Faith
17” (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; 18 who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, “So shall your descendants be 19 And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. 20 He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, 21 and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.” Romans 4:17-21 NKJV
In these few verses, we see 4 things that we can use to constantly strengthen our faith, four things we see Abraham did to strengthen his faith. Strengthen your faith today in these truths, because life will erode your faith unless your work to strengthen it daily.
First off Abraham had a promise from God that He kept as his foundation, no matter how many years passed from the time of the promise to the moment of seeing it come to pass. The promise was the foundation. We usually want to build our foundation upon the answer, not the promise.
The second thing we see is that Abraham was very aware of the reality of the circumstances surrounding him. But in spite of that, Abraham also exerted faith in the promises. Abraham had faith even when he faced contrary evidence. Likewise, we need to choose to believe the Word always even when the evidence is contrary to the promise. I need to choose to believe the promise even after what seems to me to be an extraordinary passage of time with the promise unfulfilled.
Third, we see that Abraham grew in faith as he meditated on the promise that was given to him. We see he exercised faith by acting upon it. We must move ahead and do what we are called to, even when we can’t see how His promises will come. We move and act on faith where we can so that our actions demonstrate that we know, what has been promised is truly ours.
Finally, we see one of the most important things Abraham did. He gave glory to God even before he saw the fulfillment of the promise. He praised the Lord for what was his before it was realized in his life.
Abraham could do these things and we have the very faith of Jesus inside of us. So, there is no reason we cannot do the same things Abraham did to strengthen his faith, and no reason we cannot see the same powerful evidence of His promises come to pass in our lives.
J Todd Hostetler