Nurture Your Faith (Faith Series

The real question today is, 'What is faith?' because somehow we have lost the original meaning of FAITH. Today by going to church once a week and singing, praying and being emotional with our fellow believers in church doesn't make us faithful believer so called 'Biswasi'.

So then what actually faith is?

To understand Faith more closely, let's start from the story of rope walker, Charles Blondin.

On September 14, 1860, Blondin became the first person to cross a tightrope stretched 11,000 feet (over a quarter of a mile) across the mighty Niagara Falls. People from both Canada and America came from miles away to see this great feat. He walked across, 160 feet above the falls, several times… each time with a different daring feat – once in a sack, on stilts, on a bicycle, in the dark, and blindfolded. One time he even carried a stove and cooked an omelet in the middle of the rope! A large crowd gathered and the buzz of excitement ran along both sides of the river bank. The crowd “Oohed and Aahed!” as Blondin carefully walked across – one dangerous step after another – pushing a wheelbarrow holding a sack of potatoes. Then a one point, he asked for the participation of a volunteer. Upon reaching the other side, the crowd’s applause was louder than the roar of the falls! Blondin suddenly stopped and addressed his audience: “Do you believe I can carry a person across in this wheelbarrow?” The crowd enthusiastically yelled, “Yes! You are the greatest tightrope walker in the world. We believe!” “Okay,” said Blondin, “ Then who wants to get into the wheelbarrow.” Everybody was silent at that point. At last one old lady came forward and he took her to rope on a wheelbarrow successfully and that old lady was his mother.

This unique story illustrates a real life picture of what faith actually is. The crowd watched these daring feats. They said they believed. But… their actions proved they truly did not believe.

Similarly, it is one thing for us to say we believe in God. However, it’s true faith when we believe God and put our faith and trust in His Son, Jesus Christ. Many people “believe” Jesus Christ really exists. Many believe he is who he claimed to be – God himself and the savior of the world. But that’s not biblical faith. That’s just mental assent. An acceptance of the facts. The Bible says demons “believe” in this way (James 2:19).

Faith is not only about mental acceptance of the facts but relying for our life on God like a Blondin's mother on his son. How your faith will perform when life has to go through rough & tough, obstacles and difficulties?

"God is looking for people through whom He can the impossible. what a pity that we plan only the things we can do by ourselves" - A.W Tozer

What is Faith?

- Story of a boy who broght an umbrella after praying for rain

- Story of Noah

- Story of Abraham

According to Nelson Bible dictionary, "Faith is a belief in or confident attitude toward God, involving commitment to his will for one's life". Nelson also says belief is to place one's trust in God's truth.

Greek word for Faith is 'pistis' somehow in the process of translating the word 'Faith' from Hebrew and Greek to other language, it has lost it's genuine and original meaning. Today we connects the meaning of Faith with hope and our wants. If we hope our team and wants to win the game, I simply believes and put my faith on team although team is not much competitive. But the word 'Pistis' is related with truth. When one's confidence and belief is on truth no matter what that is faith and Jesus said He is the only Truth (john 4:16).

Nurture Your Faith:

Smith Wigglesworth, the anointed English Bible teacher and healer once said:

“How can one come to possess great faith? Now listen, here is the answer to that: First, the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. Faith must grow by soil, moisture, and exercise.”

Bible says, "if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20). Most of the time by quoting this passage we like to confine our faith to the same mustard seed. Actually, Chrst is trying to show the potentiality of the seed. If such a small and baby faith can move the mountain, how powerful work can be donw if we cultivate the same seed of faith and bring it to maturity?

This passage doesn't mean that we shoul limit our faith in seed only. We must nurture and develop our Faith. Jesus Christ told another parable about mustard seed in Matthew 13:31-32, here He told us,

"as the mustard seed is small but when it is planted and grows it is to be more fruitful than anyother tree and gives shelter to the birds of sky."

Dear believers, seed of faith shouldn't be confined to seed only, it must be planted. God wants us to grow it into a tree (Colossians 2:7)