How do you grow your faith?
This is a question I asked at our church this past Sunday. I had my daughter & one of her friends help me illustrate how things grow. As you’ll see in the clip, I might have cheated. 🙂
(To view or listen to the full message, click here)
Plants don’t grow on command. Neither to people.
It would be so much easier if they did. You could simply plant the seed, tell it to grow & viola! You have the tree, or the flower, or the tomato plant you wanted in an instant!
And my kids would be happy too. There’s so many times that something comes up they want to do & we have to tell them they can’t, but one day when they “get bigger” they’ll be able to do it. Even though the ride at the carnival looks awesome, they have to be “this tall” before they’re allowed to go on that particular ride. What if they could just grow up a few inches, & then enjoy that ride? How awesome would that be? But that’s not the way growth happens.
Every plant needs one critical ingredient to grow well. Of course, a plant needs sunlight, good soil, healthy roots, water & air. But there’s one more critical ingredient every plant needs to grow.
Time.
And it’s the same ingredient people need to grow as well.
When it comes to faith, there’s no way to short-circuit the process. It takes time over time to grow faith.
[Tweet ” It takes time over time to grow faith. #grow #faith”]Paul prayed this for the followers of Jesus in the city of Ephesus: “I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might GROW in your knowledge of God.” Ephesians 1.17
Are you growing in the knowledge of God?
Notice here that Paul isn’t praying for people to grow in their knowledge of the word of God. They didn’t even have the New Testament yet. They probably had no idea they were reading a letter that would one day be in a book we call the Bible! No. Paul’s prayer here isn’t for them to grow in the knowledge of the word of God, it’s for them to grow in the knowledge OF GOD. To grow in a relationship of knowing the person of God.
Just like I can’t command my kids to grow, nor can I command a plant to grow, you can’t just grow your faith because you want to.
What you can do is put yourself in the right place, the right environment, the right location & space where you can grow.
[Tweet “Put yourself in position to grow in knowing God. #grow”]This is what the Spiritual Disciples are for. They put you in a place where God can transform you.
But transformation is an inside job. Only God can do it. And it happens gradually, over time. We must wait for God to come & do what only God can do. But in order for that to happen, we have to create a TIME where we can WAIT on God. Where we can step into his presence & be with Him.
[Tweet “Transformation is an inside job. Only God can do it. #grow”]Are you putting yourself in a location, in a place & space where God can grow your faith?
Creating this space where we can meet with God, it’s often been called throughout history the practice of the Spiritual Disciplines. The practice of reading & meditating on the word of God. The practice of prayer & fasting. The practice of celebration, confession, worship & more.
I love what Richard Foster says in his incredible book, Celebration of Discipline:
A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He cultivated the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, & then the natural forces of the earth take over & up comes the grain. This is the way it is with the Spiritual Disciplines – they are a way of sowing the Spirit. The Disciplines are God’s way of getting us into the ground; they put us where he can work within us & transform us. By themselves the Spiritual Disciplines can do nothing; they can only get us to the place where something can be done. They are God’s means of grace.
All the farmer can do is plant & water, it’s God that makes things grow.
In the same way you can plant, you can water, you can spend time in prayer, in the presence of God, in the word of God & with the people of God, but it’s God that makes things grow.
So today, take time to make your personal pursuit of knowing Jesus your highest priority. And over time, watch your faith grow.
[Tweet “Make your personal pursuit of knowing Jesus your highest priority. #grow”]
