Lord, Increase Our Faith

“Lord, Increase Our Faith”

All great discoveries are marked by great simplicity. Steam power, electricity, compressed air, and the marvellous mechanical combinations by which labour is reduced and power multiplied in modern industry—all are characterized by simplicity of operation.

Even the force of gravitation that moves the universe is simplicity itself. And when we rise to the higher realm of spiritual things, we find that the forces in the economy of grace are just as simple. All moral systems of the world are exceedingly complicated, and right living becomes more exhausting and impossible than the bondage of Egypt.

In contrast with all this, the gospel is humblingly simple. On God’s side it is the gift of Jesus Christ, who comes to dwell in the soul and become our all in all. Not a thousand hard conditions, but Christ Himself—and Christ alone. On our side it is not a ladder of a thousand steps which we must painfully climb, nor an initiation into endless mysteries which we must master, but one simple principle of faith and one act of faith by which we receive God’s Christ and enter into His life. After we have entered, “we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand,” and “as you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” “He who believes has everlasting life.” “For we walk by faith.”

It is a great thing to master the simplicity of God’s grace and to learn the secret that opens all doors in the King’s palace and brings us into touch with all His treasures.

So, the apostles were wiser than they knew when they prayed, “Lord, increase our faith,” for when they had faith, they had everything.

Jesus had just told them that they must forgive a brother who sinned against them—not once or twice, but seven times in a single day. Overwhelmed by this demand and conscious of their utter inability to reach such love and mercy, they cried in self-despair, “Lord, increase our faith!”

The Holy Spirit seems to have taught them that love and mercy are not cultivated by effort but received from God by faith as a direct gift of His grace.

This is truly the secret of all grace. God’s way of holiness is not self-culture but self-renunciation and union with Christ. Whether it is love, purity, humility, or any grace, it must be received by simple faith as Christ’s free gift in righteousness. “And of His fulness we have all received, and grace for grace.”

In contrast to the works of the flesh stand the fruits of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith.” These are the spontaneous fruits of divine life within us, not the product of self-improvement.

Peter says (in 2 Peter 1:5-7) that it is to our faith (not in our character) we are to add virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love.

This is the radical difference between all systems and the full gospel of Jesus Christ. Not only salvation but sanctification, also, is wholly His gift.

His righteousness is first imputed to us and then imparted, received by simple faith. Is there anything we need for the inner life? It is in vain that we try to develop this from the poisoned ground of our fallen human nature but it must be received through the indwelling life of Christ in our hearts. This is what it means to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” and to have Him “who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”

Have you ever tried to produce love for someone unkind? Have you tried to forgive a cruel wrong by sheer effort? You will have found that the experiment fails. Have you tried to forgive a horrible miscarriage of judgment towards you? You may have decided to say forgiving words, yet your heart shrinks back and you tried to avoid that unkind person. That is not the love that forgives seven times a day or seventy times seven. Only God’s love can do this, and God’s love enters the heart only by divine faith. This was what they sought when they cried, “Lord, increase our faith!”

Jesus said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

The mulberry tree may represent an organic evil—a living growth rooted in the soil of our life, hindering our work or our healthy development. It may be an incurable disease festering in the body, a terrible temptation that has seized the soul, or circumstances that seem to block our dearest purposes.

The Master teaches us that by the exercise of faith we can set in motion a force that will uproot this evil and cause it to wither away, even as the fig tree withered at His word. It is not hard to find such an obstacle in every earnest life—a Jericho whose walls must fall before we can advance; a tower of Zion which must be taken from the Jebusites before the kingdom can be established in glory in our heart and life.

Faith can uproot such obstacles. Every earnest life has its Jericho and its tower of Zion. Faith is a real force—as real as gravitation or electricity—because faith is simply the human side of God, the divine current that touches the throne and moves the universe.

It does not seem that a great quantity of faith is needed for this—“faith as a grain of mustard seed.” It is not the quantity of faith, but its quality, that is decisive. The peculiarity of the mustard seed is that, though very small, it is a living thing and has perfect life within itself. This is the difference between the mustard seed and a grain of sand or even a fragment of rock: the one is broken and dead; the other is a complete organism, a whole world of life and power. Within the mustard seed is a living germ which will develop in the soil and unfold until it becomes a plant and a tree where the birds may lodge.

Faith is a living force that lifts the greatest wall from our path and opens a way through the rock that obstructs us.

But the mustard seed must be whole, not merely a fragment. Satan seeks to corrupt the core of faith and make it dead and useless. It must have within it the life of God, the Spirit of Christ—that vital force which moves and develops into life and fruitfulness. This is not the struggling effort of the doubting heart to trust God. This is God’s faith, which He imparts to the soul that feels its helplessness even to believe. We see this when the disciples wondered at the effect of Jesus’ word, and He said, “Have faith in God.”

We also find this rendered, “Have the faith of God.” That is, the same faith which enabled Me to cause the fig tree to wither at a word will enable you also to remove mountains of difficulty from your path. I am come not merely to show you what I can do, but to come into your heart with My living presence and resurrection power, and live My life over again in you—giving you not only My blessed blood, My redeeming righteousness, My sanctifying grace, and My abiding power, but also My own faith, which is the secret of all My strength and shall be the source of your strength.

Give up your own faith and take God’s faith. Cease from your efforts to believe. Cease from believing in your faith. Acknowledge that it is as impossible for you to believe by your own power as it is to love, to overcome, or to perform any act of the new life without divine grace. Die to your own faith as you die to your own righteousness and look up and take hold of the faith of Jesus Christ. This was the apostle’s experience when he said, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

We know a dear sister who had been a cripple for years. She struggled to obtain divine healing but could not, though she firmly believed it was possible. One day she saw the simple truth that Christ Himself would be her faith. She ceased from striving and received the Lord as her portion, and in a moment, she was wonderfully healed and is now a blessed missionary in a foreign land.

When I know that my sanctification and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit are my birthright as a child of God, I can take hold of the fulness of blessing and know that it is mine. When I see that He bore my sicknesses and infirmities, it is no hard thing to lay them upon Him who bore them.

If you would have your faith increased, do not fear trials. Difficulties are the very school of faith. You never learn to use the sword in times of peace. The eaglet would never learn to fly if the mother allowed it to remain in the nest and be fed from her mouth. One day she breaks up the nest, and in its distress the young bird must spread its wings and learn to fly. So, God teaches us to use the wings of faith by breaking up our nests and placing us where we must either trust or sink in despair. Do not miss your trials. Do not miss their blessed lessons. Rise through them to higher victories, and let your heart cry at every conflict, “Lord, increase my faith!”

Love is the element in which faith reaches its perfection. We begin the conflict of faith with the will; we come at last to the rest of the soul. We find our way to John’s place on Jesus’ breast, and we know that in love He will bless us far beyond all that we can ask or think.

Let us diligently realize the glorious possibilities of faith. Let us learn, like the eaglet, to use our wings and rise to the heights of glory, where we shall one day be forever with Him.