In Matthew 21:21(NLT), Jesus Christ said to his disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done.” There are three incredibly important action steps in this verse. The first is to have faith. The second is to not doubt, and the third is to speak forth a command or confession. At face value these are not complicated and most any person with a sound mind can comprehend them, but when it comes to actually putting these steps in motion, some of us have a great deal of difficulty. It’s worth our every effort to figure out where the challenge lies, because the words of Jesus in this verse provide the framework for exercising faith and seeing results. They also are the foundation upon which a life of peace, happiness, and longevity will rest.
Have faith
In Hebrews 11:1(NLT), God gives us the definition of faith. He tells us, “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.” The King James Version of this verse says that faith is the substance of things hoped for, and it is the evidence of things not seen. Faith is the title deed of our dreams and desires before they come into fruition. It is the substance we must firmly hold in our minds no matter what our conditions and circumstances look like.
To have confidence in something is to know beyond knowing that it will actually occur. This is a mental and emotional attitude of faith. Heavenly Father used faith to create everything that you and I see. Nothing exists that wasn’t made using faith. By this, it is easy to comprehend that God made faith a spectacularly potent substance. We can’t see it with human eyes, but if used with the love of Christ, it can be a powerful tool that God has given us to work with.
Romans 12:3 tells us that God has given every person a measure of faith. So, we all have faith. For instance, it takes faith for you and me to get up, brush our teeth, wash our faces, and proceed with our days. If you’re sitting, it takes faith to get up from where you’re sitting and move yourself from point A to point B. Everything takes faith, and we do all these things so routinely that we don’t give it much thought. But make no mistake, the apparatus that allows us to do anything is the faith that God has given us through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Don’t doubt
Faith requires our cooperation to achieve results. James 2:26 tells us that faith without works is dead. This means we can say a whole bunch of stuff, and we can brag about this or that, but if we’ve got nothing to back it up, what we say is deader than a doorknob. Faith requires action. And action requires our will. If you and I want to do something, before we put it in motion, we think about what we want to do. It’s in our minds even if we don’t recognize this. Just about anything that you and I set our will and intention to do can be achieved, but we must have a strong will. This strong will motivates us into action and drives us to continue acting upon what we believe. Why? Because that’s what you do when you have faith. We don’t give up when we believe in something and back it with continued right action, right thinking, and right confessions.
You and I can’t do anything that we don’t believe we can do. If you don’t believe you’ll get up tomorrow morning, odds are you won’t. So, believing something is the engine that propels our actions, and our actions and confessions propel our faith. The moment we stop acting and confessing in faith, the momentum of faith slows.
Now here’s where things get a little deep. Believing in something is controlled by your heart, not by your mouth. You can make a confession that sounds incredibly optimistic, but if your heart ain’t in it, it’s fluff. You can give anything lip service, and most people go this route. They talk a good game, but don’t back it up. A person can tell you they love you all day long, but if they are not doing something to back this up, the love isn’t there. It’s just words. Most of us can tell when a person isn’t real. We can tell because they’re not speaking and feeling from a genuine heart-space. We have a term for this, and it’s called ‘fake’. No shade intended. Although the word ‘fake’ does indeed have a negative connotation, sometimes people behave in a way that seems disingenuous because they don’t understand that others can always see through this. They don’t understand that the heart will always tell the true story. This is why God tells us in Proverbs 4:23(NLT), “Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.”
So, when it comes to faith, we have to be all in, so to speak. There can be no doubt in our hearts, especially when it comes to God, His love, and His willingness to help us. Faith and doubt can’t live in the same place. One will overrule the other. The thing that you and I also have to recognize is that our faith will be tested by the devil to see if it is strong enough to stand. This is where many relationships get torn apart, because the will of the couple hasn’t been built to such a strength that it sustains their union during tough times. Darts sent by the enemy are hurled at the couple, and half the time they don’t even recognize it’s a dart. Their defenses are down, and the dart of division separates them.
Our faith is only as strong as our belief in the Source of it. God created us in such a way that love sustains us. Our belief in love frames the quality of our existence. So if we believe that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son’s life to save it, then we have the highest belief attainable of love. For John 15:13 tells us that there is no greater love than that of a person who has laid down his life for his friends. And there is no greater triumph of faith than that of giving one’s life for love’s sake and being resurrected back to life again. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. These are the basic tenets of faith, and if our will isn’t backed by a heart that is fully persuaded in these truths, then our faith is small, and our confessions won’t carry much weight.
A confession that holds weight
Colossians 2:7(NLT) says, “Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.” Our most significant relationships will always require the most from us. We must be rooted in God’s love through Christ so that we’re operating from a place of putting God first. He’s the glue that holds our relationships together. We should be praying constantly for His wisdom and confessing the unity of Christ over our unions. Our commitment to God is what gives our confessions weight, and this commitment will back our relationship and cause it to flourish and be strengthened with the faith of Jesus Christ. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Strengthening Your Relationship through Faith?” written for Crazynlove.com ©2019. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!