4 Ways God Will Increase Your Faith

Romans 10:17

The Bible is clear that the effectiveness of our prayers and the peace we will experience in life is directly related to the proportion of our faith in God. However, we must be careful we do not slip into the unbiblical thinking that puts the emphasis on the size of our faith rather than on the object of our faith.

If you put your faith in the wrong thing, the amount of faith you have does not matter. Even when we have a small amount of faith, God is still able to accomplish his will because God’s will being done is ultimately dependent on the power of God and not on us.

Nonetheless, throughout the Bible we are told how important faith in God actually as, for as Hebrews 11:6 states, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” In Matthew 13:58, referring to Jesus, it says, “And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.”

So here are 4 ways God will increase your faith in him.

1. God Will Increase Your Faith By Bringing You Face-to-Face with Your Fears

In love, God does not shelter us from our fears forever. Rather, God holds us by the hand and walks right up with us to our fears. Eventually God will arrange the circumstances in your life to force you to face your fears or run away.

At first it can seem cruel that God will not let us avoid what we fear most, but when we look at this truth more deeply, we can see that God does this for our good. God knows that to overcome our fears, we must face them with him. And when we finally look at our fears right in the face, this is one of the main ways God increases our faith in him.

We know we have to do it, but we know we can’t do it in our own power. And so our only two options are to run away or to depend on God for the victory. When you face your fears and God brings you through it, you will instantly have a new level of faith that you did not have before you faced this fear.

Perhaps one of the best places in the Bible to see this truth is in John 21 where Jesus reinstates Peter after his betrayal. Rather than avoid the obvious issue, Jesus brings Peter face-to-face with his greatest failure. He forces Peter to deal with his fears before he will let him move on with his life. After it was all over, Peter was never the same because of what Jesus did for him.

2. God Will Increase Your Faith By Teaching You the Truth and Opening Your Eyes to the Evidence of His Love for You

Contrary to what the world thinks about Christian faith, nowhere in the Bible are we told to have blind faith. Christian faith is simply believing in what we cannot see (Hebrews 11:1), but this does not mean we should believe in things that there is no evidence for.

The fact that the Bible exists at all would contradict the logic that Christians are called to believe abstract ideas with no evidence. Through the word of God we are given evidence for the truth, and when our minds our opened to the truth through the Spirit, our faith is increased. As Romans 10:17 explains, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” When we hear and understand the word of God, our faith is increased.

While the Bible is the main source of discovering truth, God has also revealed himself through creation as well. Everywhere we look we can see the evidence for God’s existence and his love for us. In Psalm 19:1-4 we are taught that God gives knowledge about himself to the whole world through what he has created and given to humans on earth. This is exactly what Jesus said in Matthew 5:44-45. It states:

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

How does God show his love to those who don’t love him? One way, according to this passage, is that he gives humans the things they need to live, like the sun and the rain.  In Acts 14:17 Paul explains how God has shown his love to the world through giving them what they need to survive, “Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”

God intends to increase our faith through opening our eyes to his truth, both in the Bible and in creation. When we begin to comprehend the truth about God’s existence and love for us, this always increases our faith.

3. God Will Increase Your Faith By Not Giving You Something You Want and Then Giving You Something Even Better

So many times in life we ask God for something we desperately want but for some reason he says no. It’s at these times we have two options. Some people turn from God in anger when he does not do what they want. Others, however, remain faithful to God even though they are deeply confused about why God did not do what they asked of him.

But something amazing always happens for those who remain faithful to God even though they do not understand why he has withheld this blessing from them. Eventually, God’s reasons for withholding that blessing become clear. It may take months, it may take years, or it may happen once we die and we reach God’s manifest presence – but eventually we always will see that God did what was best for us.

Many times this experience occurs while you are still living on earth. God withholds something you desire, you are confused, but over time God actually gives you something even better than what you had wanted previously. Suddenly it all makes sense. Through this experience of God saying no because he had something better in store for you, your faith is increased. As Ephesians 3:20-21 proclaims:

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

4. God Will Increase Your Faith By Allowing You to Personally Experience His Presence When You Seek Him with All Your Heart

Perhaps the most powerful way God increases our faith is by giving us personal encounters with himself. But God does not always give us these encounters if we seek him with a lazy, half-hearted spirit. Oftentimes God puts us in desperate situations so we will seek him desperately.

When you seek God in these moments of desperation, this is often when we experience God’s presence most powerfully, for as Jeremiah 29:13 states, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”