Do you want your faith to grow strong? I know I do. This is a key truth to obtaining strong faith. I like to go to words written by the apostle Paul in the New Testament when I am thinking about strength and faith because several of these books were letters he wrote to different churches while he was in prison. I think if you can encourage people to have strength in the faith while you yourself are being held captive you have something worth sharing.
Speaking of Christ, Paul tells us that once we have accepted Him as our Lord to continue to grow in Him we need to let our roots grow down into Him and our lives to be built on Him. Then, he says, our faith will grow strong and we will overflow with thankfulness (verses 6-7). Why will this help us? How? I think the why is found in verse 3 which tells us that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Hidden? Why would they be hidden? Well, my own take on this is that like anything truly worth pursuing we must pursue--we must be diligent in running after it. So the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ so we will pursue them in Him.
How does this lead to strong faith? It has to do with truly knowing the Source of our faith. We have faith-lite in many things. We have faith that when we turn on a light switch a light bulb will light up. We have faith that when we sit on a chair it will hold us up. We use faith in this way every day and that faith-lite grows as we exercise it and experience it and find it trustworthy. But if we want to have faith-strong we dig deeper into the source. An electrician knows much more than I about how flipping a light switch will cause a light bulb to light up. But he had to study to learn how to make that happen.
The same is true of our faith in Christ. We can have faith-lite in Christ and believe that He was sent by God, believe that He is God, accept Him as our Savior--our ticket into eternity with God, and leave it there. But if we want faith-strong in Christ we want to get to know Him. We will let our roots dig down deep and let our lives be built on Him. Time after time in God's Word we are told that the greatest claim we could ever make would be that we know and understand God. That is a challenge I am pursuing--I am running after knowledge of God and as I do I find my faith growing because I know the Source intimately. I see how He works. I experience Him. I learn to trust Him.
Would you like to join me in this pursuit? Is this inviting to you? If so, join me as I read His Word. Join me as I search for what it is saying to me personally. Come along on this lifelong journey into strong faith. Encourage yourself and others along your way as you delve into the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. There's no time like the present to start. Ready, set, go!
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