A measure of faith

I was watching an American Christian TV programme, and the preacher’s key verse was also on my mind. It was ‘to each a measure of faith’. Rom 12:3. I could agree with what he was saying, and yet in some ways, I felt like something was missing. He was speaking about what we do but communicated nothing about how we do it.

While I fundamentally believe that we should aspire to be the best we can be, we cannot be whatever we want to be. If you are male, you cannot be female. If you are old, you can’t be young. You can’t change your IQ. Nor can you change your physical stature. Jesus said that we can’t add one cubit to our stature by reason of thought. Matt 6:27.

This reminded me of a book written in the 1930’s titled ‘Think and Grow Rich’. It is quite a classic and is based on the concept of ‘auto-suggestion’ and visualisation to make something happen. The author proposes that if we keep visualising, thinking and striving toward what we desire, it will happen.

There are many people who consider faith to be something akin to ‘auto-suggestion’. However, we don’t get faith by thinking harder, projecting harder or focusing harder. That might be a kind of faith, but it’s certainly not the faith of Christ. I define faith as the ability of Christ within us to do the will of God. Faith does not originate in us. It is a gift from God. We recall the words of Paul, ‘Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God’. Rom 10:17. It is the word of God that defines who we should be, and what we should do. And with every word comes ‘a measure of faith’ and the capacity to do it.

The Lord does ‘add’ to our lives, but it’s not by the power of positive thinking. It’s according to the ‘measure of faith’ given to us. So Paul wrote, ‘I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgement, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith’. Rom 12:3.

David Falk

Return to top

Feature Articles
February 2009

A measure of faith

Faith for resurrection

Calling upon the Lord

Ready or not

Recognising new creation

Learning to shepherd

The word of faith

The fruits of wisdom

Following the Lamb

Once I was blind

What are fences for?