How to Develop Your Faith- Mark 8:11-13,16-21,27-33

Listen friend, you must realize that by faith you are saved. And without faith you can do nothing. You please God through your faith. With faith the size of a grain of mustard seed, you can remove mountains. And faith without works is dead. It is easy to conclude that there is no real encounter with Jesus Christ except through faith. I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God in the same way that I believe that I am the son of William T. Vandiver. All evidence indicates this to be true. Then the bible teaches me that if I have a true life changing experience where I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior, then I become His son. I am heir and joint heir with the Lord Jesus Christ and all others who truly believe in Him.

Why do I believe this? How did I develop this faith? The bible teaches it as truth. I believe the word of God to be truth. Therefore my faith is developed through the study of the word and its application to every day life. The Jews had developed a mind set that caused them to be more concerned with the keeping of the law than keeping the faith. It is at this time and place that the critics accused Jesus of breaking religious tradition because he allowed his disciples to eat food with unclean hands. One of the most important teachings comes out of this incident. Jesus tells his critics that it is not the unclean that enters man that is his problem…but it is what comes out of him that matters 7: 14. Nothing that is outside of man can make him unclean by going into him. Rather it is what comes out of man that makes him unclean.

Verse 20…he went on to say. What comes out of man is what makes him unclean. For from within and out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, greed, malice, and deceit. We are what we think, say and do. Our outward expressions and manifested feelings and desires indicate what we really believe our responsibilities are toward others.

The bible defines faith as the substance of things we hope for when the evidence is unseen or unknown. Things may be unseen or unknown to us but we believe because we believe the word of the Lord which has assured us that through the grace of Jesus Christ and our true belief that all things are possible when we are in Christ. No promise has ever been broken and none will ever be. Our only responsibility is to truly believe that Christ is and will always be the savior of man kind. It is a matter of faith, we simply must believe. It is a simple but very complicated truth that must have permeated your total being. In the beginning was God and nothing else. Do you believe that? From nothing, God created all things that are. Do you believe that? God and his son Jesus Christ [one and the same] are in total charge of this world and all that takes place therein. Do you believe that?

These truths and many others are recorded in God’s word for us to use to use as proving grounds for our faith. There is no way one can grow their faith other than to read the bible and learn of the ways that God deals with man, always consistent and in complete fairness. When you know this to be truth, you can truly say “my faith is sufficient.”