Objection: Faith Is a Gift from God, Not Something You Work Up Yourself

God has given everyone the “measure of faith” (Romans 12:3), but faith for a particular blessing is possible only when you hear what God’s Word says about that particular blessing.  The “measure of faith” is the gift of God.  But faith for healing (or any other particular blessing) only comes when you hear God’s Word on the matter.  Otherwise, your “measure of faith” has nothing to take hold of.

Faith is a gift from God, and Paul states so in Romans 12:3 and Ephesians 2:8-9.  But God tells us how faith for something in particular comes in Romans 10:17 – by hearing the Word of God.  The faith that comes for a particular blessing could be seen as a gift from God, though it comes from His Word.  If you won’t hear His Word, it isn’t God’s fault that you’re stuck in unbelief.  It is up to you to hear God’s Word so that faith for specific blessings can grow in your life.  Don’t just sit around thinking that God is going to drop faith for a certain blessing on you, because that isn’t how it works.

It is correct that you don’t “work up” faith yourself.  It is a treadmill of frustration to try to “work up” faith instead of cultivating it the natural way by hearing what Scripture says.  Find out what God says and act on it.  If it’s a huge struggle, you’re probably trying to grasp something mentally when you really need a revelation in your spirit about it.  Or you’re just not choosing to act on the Word that you already know.  The devil wants you to try to “work it up yourself” and get frustrated in the process.  On the other hand, he wouldn’t mind if you just sit there waiting for God to drop faith on you, which will leave you frustrated, too.  Faith DOES come by hearing the Word, so if you hear the Word, faith WILL rise up in you without you having to “struggle to believe.”

Jesus told a parable about a sower.  One lesson from it was that God’s Word is the same but it bears fruit differently according to the ground that it’s planted in.  The idea is to be good ground in which the Word can grow and produce a harvest.  Jesus warned that if you don’t have ears to hear His Word, even what you have (or think you have) will be taken from you (Mark 4:23-25).

Faith for a particular blessing is not a gift that lands on you out of the sky (even though “the measure of faith” was given to you) without regard to you knowing any Scripture.  You didn’t get faith to be saved by having faith fall out of the sky, did you?  No, you got faith to be saved when someone shared God’s Word with you concerning salvation.  You follow the same pattern to receive healing and other gospel benefits.

So while faith is God’s gift, you do have a part to play in developing it and exercising it.  If you think that’s “working it up,” it IS “working it up” in the sense that you do have to do something.  It is not up to God how much faith you walk in – it is up to YOU.  If you heed and act on His Word, you will live better than someone else who could be doing the same thing but doesn’t do it.