Feel Like You Don't Have Faith?

Do you often feel frustrated with your life or circumstances? Are you tired of hearing about trusting God because that doesn't seem to be helping your situation or thoughts?  Then keep reading, because this information is for you. 

Like you, I have struggled with having faith. I've been so discouraged that I was ready to just give up, and truth be told, I believe I have given up many times. But something down deep inside of me kept telling me that there was still hope, and that I could believe for a better day. 

Because I love to understand how things work, I determined to understand how faith works in a way that would be practical so that I could use it in my life, rather than just talk about it as a theory. What I am about to share is simple to understand, yet it may well be the turning point for your entire life. 

To begin, let's understand that faith is required. It's not an option. This is only a starting point, but if you want a great relationship with God, you must have faith. Hebrews 11:6 says And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Of all the things you might have heard about God, did you know He requires you to not only believe in Him but have unshakeable confidence that He rewards you when you seek after Him? 

Many people groan when they hear this because they don't want to sound like Jesus freaks or sound overly "spiritual" in their regular lives. We've all seen fake Christians or those who simply talk about God, but their words lack power because they're based on knowledge, not experience. But the very experience of seeking after God will not make us more act more religious, but rather give balance to who God truly created us to be. 

We don't need to do outwardly religious things to earnestly seek God. Simply by turning our thoughts and hearts toward Him we can seek after Him. We must believe, not only that He exists, but that He wants to reward us for seeking him. This means that in order to have effective faith, we need to understand God's system of faith. The first point is that God rewards the people who diligently seek Him. 

Now that we know faith is required, how do we acquire it? I'm here to tell you it doesn't come from anything you might think it does. Here is a short list of things you can't do to get faith. 

• You can't believe enough or hard enough to have faith 

• You can't just study the Bible or pray and expect to have faith 

• You can't attend church or do religious things to have faith 

So if these things don't provide faith, where do we get faith from? The answer is surprisingly simple, but to find it, we need to clear up some misconceptions. 

Romans 10:17 is often quoted as saying faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, so most people believe reading and studying the Bible or listening to Bible teaching will give them faith. Oftentimes the exact opposite happens, so experience shows that something is questionable here. When we look more closely at the text we find there is a better way to translate and understand it. The NIV translation gets close to the original meaning. Read this: 16 But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” 17 Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ. It is not the Bible, per se, or prayer, or teaching that give us faith. It's the message about Jesus Christ, His love, life, suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, intercession, and more. Another way of thinking about this is that faith comes into our lives when Jesus is revealed to us. 

This may sound simple, and in truth it is, but the reason we pause here is that most Christian teaching today is based on moralism, or life coaching, and both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible are used as the basis of this teaching. To be sue, the Bible is full of great content, so I'm not saying the teaching is bad per se. The problem comes from focusing on our efforts instead of our Savior. When we focus on what we must do, we take all the stress Jesus died to free us from upon ourselves. If we learn to focus on what He did, rather than what we did, what we are doing, or what we can do, we will find the revelation of Jesus builds faith in our hearts automagically. 

Much of the teaching, preaching, and content of today's Christian world are focused on principles of living and self discipline, but are not focused on revealing Jesus Christ to us. In order to have faith, we must eliminate those things that make us self focused and introspective and add those things that make us look at Jesus and His finished work more often, and with more confidence. We must find Him revealed in all the Scriptures, understanding that the Old Testament foreshadows His blessings and work in our lives, and accept that we now live in a new reality; the reality of being the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. Only then will we begin to feel faith arising in our spirits so we can believe God for greater things.