How to Build Your Faith
There is only one effective way to grow in faith for receiving more particular blessings:
“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” – Romans 10:17.
If you want to have more faith to receive more blessings, you need to hear more of the word of God. Even if you mentally acknowledge what it says, you must continue to reflect upon it and speak it to yourself. This hearing is not a one-shot deal where you hear it once and go your merry way. This refers to a process of hearing the Word repeatedly. The Word itself produces faith – it is called the “word of faith!”
Romans 10:8:
But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;
Faith for specific things will come automatically when you keep hearing God’s words. They are not mere facts but spirit and life. When you get full of the Word, you get full of faith without consciously trying to do so! This is so simple that it’s amazing more people don’t see this, so they often resort to the ineffective means shown below. God’s word is the “word of faith.” Faith and the Word go together.
While some believers obsess with “building strong faith,” the issue is not as much needing more faith than acting on the faith that they already have. The man in Acts 14:7-10 was an example of this – he HAD faith to be healed, but he just didn’t exercise it immediately.
You already have faith in the sense of being able to believe (Romans 12:3). The issue is that you won’t know WHAT to use that faith to believe until you hear the Word of God.
Here are some ineffective ways to try to get more faith:
Praying for More Faith
This didn’t work for the apostles, and it won’t work for you.
Luke 17:5-6:
And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.
And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea, and it should obey you.
Here Jesus pointed out that you do not need “great faith” to do something, but you need to act on the faith that you have, even if it’s a small as a mustard seed! You do the majority of acting your faith with the words of your mouth. “Ye might say unto this sycamine tree....”
Trying Harder to Believe
This involves a struggle to “make yourself believe” something. Prepare for a lot of frustration and not much faith. God never commanded you to try to believe anything. He just commanded you to believe His words.
But there is a difference between believing His words and just trying to believe that you are healed. If you have no Bible basis for believing that you can receive healing as a gift from God, you will not develop more faith in the area of healing. You will stay frustrated and sick! If you still have doubts that the God of the Bible has made provision for your healing, the solution is to continue to listen to and read His statements about the subject. You will find that you will start believing, and it will seem natural rather than seeming like an impossible struggle.
Praying in Other Tongues
Praying in tongues can help you enter into rest and refreshing (Isaiah 28:11-12, 1 Corinthians 14:21) and become sensitive to the Holy Spirit so that you can hear the Word better, but faith still comes by hearing the Word, not by praying in other tongues. When you pray in other tongues, you are speaking mysteries that your mind does not understand. Praying in tongues builds you up (1 Corinthians 14:4), but it does not give you more faith. (By the way, Jude 20 does NOT say that praying in tongues builds your faith – see What Jude 20 Really Means.)
Denying Your Circumstances
You will not develop faith by trying to forget your problems or by pretending that they don’t exist. Doing so is not faith at all and only gives you practice lying to yourself. Faith does not deny that the problem exists; faith denies it the right to continue existing based on what God says.
Looking at Improvement in Your Body for Encouragement
Faith is based solely on God’s promises, not on any apparent improvement of your condition. It does not matter to faith if you seem to be getting better or worse. You can rejoice at improvement, but remember that it is faith that creates improvement. Then you won’t be shaken off your stand of faith if suddenly symptoms worsen or reappear in your body.
Hearing Exciting Testimonies
Testimonies will excite you and motivate you to believe God for yourself, but you cannot base faith on anyone else’s experience. The fact that God healed someone else with your condition does not mean that you will receive your healing. What will you do if you hear that someone else with your condition died? Your faith must rest solely on God’s Word. Then, even if no one else you know gets any results, you still can. Of course, to the extent that someone’s testimony involves the Word of God, your faith will be built by hearing those parts of the Word that someone else believed.
The other problem with testimonies is that many are given at crusades by people who were healed by a special manifestation of the Spirit, not their faith. Someone could give a wonderful testimony of receiving this way, but you have no guarantee apart from your faith that YOU will receive such a healing. It’s quite possible that in His mercy, God will suddenly heal an unbeliever who has no idea what’s going on. God is looking for believers to BELIEVE rather than relying on special manifestations of the Spirit to receive healing.
Condemning Yourself for Your Little Faith
You will never get anywhere by chiding and belittling yourself. “Oh, I must be a ‘ye’ of little faith. God must be so displeased with me. I really am a failure at believing God. I should have more faith. What’s wrong with me?” You will never walk in great faith if you keep belittling the faith you already have. You will just make yourself miserable. Besides, you’ll be doing the devil’s job of accusing and condemning you. As David did at Ziklag, you need to encourage yourself in the Lord, not discourage yourself!
Worshiping for More Faith
God does want you to worship Him, and failure to do so will definitely hinder you in every area of your life. However, you do not get faith by worshiping God. Worship is an expression of the faith that you already have, not a means to get more. If you are in the hospital, simply playing worship music all the time will not help you get out. It can help you stay focused on God and His Word, but the biggest thing you need to do (if you are coherent enough to do it), is to continue hearing God’s Word on the subject of healing.