Adding to Faith

If you think too much, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. So one way to avoid feeling overwhelmed, is to just not think about it. That may be easy for some of the little things that might not be that important, but important things have a way about them that let their presence be known. You might try to avoid it by not thinking about it (or not thinking too hard) but that won’t make all our problems go away.

The other way not to get overwhelmed is to pray about it. Having faith in God means that we trust in God that He will care for us and provide for us. God can free us from worry, but His promise to do that is through our having faith (Mat 6:34). 

So when there’s a lot to do, the threat of feeling overwhelmed is present. Even in matters of the church, we too can feel overwhelmed if we worry about how we don’t stack up.

Let’s take a look at 2 Peter 1 for a moment. Here God is promising to do great things in my life, but if I read this with the wrong attitude then something meant to be encouraging might just do the opposite.

Peter writes, “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:5-8).

Now, if I’m feeling like I just don’t have and won’t have the knowledge, or the godliness, or the effectiveness that Peter says God promises me, I might need to take a step back.

Peter says here to “add to your faith” and then give us several areas we need to grow in. If I find this list discouraging instead of encouraging, I might just need to “add faith to my faith”. We might need to cry out to Jesus like the man in Mark 9: “I believe, help my unbelief!”

This morning we’ll build on our lesson from last week about how Jesus says with only a mustard seed of faith God can do great things through me.

But what if I don’t even have that much?

Where do I begin?

How do I add to my faith, faith?

https://youtu.be/B0g5ZU_BQt0