Daring to believe

** Started writing this as part of my 2019 advent series and FINALLY finished it this week! Wahoo! Enjoy **

17 December. Day 17.

Luke 17: 5-6 “The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” {ESV}

Faith.

The Bible defines faith as: being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. {Hebrews 11:1 paraphrased}

I like what W. Wiersbe says of it. “Faith is obeying God in spite of what we see or hear, how we feel, or what might happen.”

The life application study Bible notes that faith “is total dependence on God and a willingness to do His will.”

The Oxford dictionary defines it as “complete trust or confidence in something or someone.”

Faith is an essential component of our Spiritual journey of knowing Jesus and becoming like Jesus. To exercise faith, we are required to obey. To obey, we are required to trust. TRUST.OBEY.FAITH. These three elements have so gripped my heart this season of my life and have formed such a huge part of my daily walk with the Lord as I continue to grow in my relationship with Him.

So what do I mean by that?

Let’s first look at TRUST. I have been married 13 years, but 14 years ago, when we started courting, I didn’t know my husband, Olav, very well. As I have daily built on my relationship with him, I have gotten to know him more intimately, and can trust him more. It’s the same with our relationship with Jesus. The more we spend time with Him, the more we get to know Him, the more we can trust Him.

OBEY. I find it hard to fulfill a request or to do something for somebody I don’t know. The reason for this is that there is no relationship, there is no trust and therefore it’s hard to obey. Knowing somebody and trusting somebody makes doing what they ask a whole lot easier! Knowing Christ and understanding the price He has paid for us, makes obeying Him that much more desirable.

FAITH. If faith is, as the life application study Bible notes, a “total dependence on God and a willingness to do His will.” Then surely it means knowing and trusting Him (depending on Him) and obeying Him (willingly doing His will). Quite simple. And yet so profound! So life changing! So liberating!

Wiersbe also notes that Faith is “daring to believe that God is working everything for our good even when we don’t feel like it or see it happening.”

Could we dare to take the jump to believe?