Building Our Faith

“But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.”  2 Peter 1:5-7

I attend a gym on a regular basis and participate in a class that includes weight lifting (which is choreographed to lively music, making it rather fun and do-able for me). From time to time our instructor encourages us to add a little extra weight that will challenge our muscles, thus making them stronger.

The problem is that I have a shoulder injury which limits movement and causes pain when I add any extra weight. This prevents me from increasing the strength of those muscles. We know that muscles need to be used, or they will gradually atrophy. Therefore, if I want to be able to add the extra weight and get stronger, I must seek healing for my injury.

But there is weight that we do not want to add or carry: any sin, hurts or hang-ups. Just as my physical injury interferes with my physical improvement and strength, spiritual or emotional problems, if not dealt with, hinder my faith from growing stronger. Faith can be likened to a muscle that needs to be strengthened by exercise in order to grow stronger. Trials are like “spiritual barbells.” The Lord uses them to challenge and strengthen our “faith muscles.”

“For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come” (1 Timothy 4:8).

In these crazy days as the world grows darker and more evil, we will need to exercise more and more faith in our awesome, loving and sovereign God.

Let me ask you, is there anything that may be hindering your ability to exercise more faith? Is (are) there sin(s) you need to confess and repent of? Are there any scars and wounds from your past that need to be healed? Is there someone you need to forgive? Do you doubt that God is willing and able to make you whole and free? Do you fear or dread the method of healing?

Just like in the past with His disciples, Jesus is in the process of building our faith by permitting us to go through difficult situations. The result of adding to our faith the attributes listed in 2 Peter 1:5-7, assures us in verse 8, “For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Lord, help us to lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Amen.