What’s Hindering your Faith

“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Romans 10:17

People have the idea that faith can grow, that we have to get more faith to receive from God.  It’s a misconception to think that way.  It is a lack of understanding, due to a lack of knowledge.

You know how you can get a picture in your mind or get a visual little movie that can help you understand something.  Picture a conveyor belt moving little chunks of faith up the conveyor belt and dropping them into a pile through your ears–little piles of the word full of faith coming through your ears and piling up inside your heart.  Most people picture faith growing like that, but that picture is not accurate.  Its not true.  That’s a false picture.  That’s not what Romans 10:17 is saying.

Faith is a substance but it doesn’t come into you like little chunks of coal falling off a conveyor belt through your ears.  You already have all the faith you will ever have.  You already have the measure of faith.  All the faith you will ever have is already there in your born again spirit.

Another way to express “So then faith cometh” is to say “So then faith is released”.  We have the idea we need to get more faith–but we are looking at the wrong thing.  What we need to see is how to release the faith we already have.  If your faith is not working, picture a man tied to a chair and gagged with ropes around him.

“Hearing” in Romans 10:17 means we have to understand it. “When any one heareth the Word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the wayside.” Matthew 13:19

There is a chain of events that takes place when the Word comes in through our ears.  When we hear the Word, we get knowledge.  Knowledge gives us the ability to release faith. Wisdom puts the knowledge to work–we start taking the ropes off the man tied to the chair–which results in understanding. “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.” Pro 4:7

It’s not faith that grows.  We grow in knowledge and wisdom and understanding.  It is our soul that is growing, being regenerated.

Wisdom is the application of knowledge.  “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.  But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For him that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.  For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.  A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”  James 5-8

Don’t look at your faith and wonder why it doesn’t work.  Look for what is keeping your faith from working and get rid of that, then faith will work.