Andrew Wommack Daily Devotional For Today 6th August, 2018
Theme – THE MEASURE OF FAITH
Luke 17:5 “And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.”
LUKE 17:1-10
It is very interesting to note that the apostles asked Jesus to increase their faith after He spoke of forgiveness. They observed all of the wonderful miracles Jesus performed and yet that never inspired them to ask for greater faith. Truly, walking in love and forgiveness with each other takes as much faith as any miracle we will ever believe for.
The basis of forgiveness is the love and mercy of God. It is only because God first loved and forgave us that we can love and forgive others. If we aren’t walking in the forgiveness of God, we won’t minister it to others. He forgave us before we repented or asked for forgiveness.
The scriptures admonish us to forgive as Christ has forgiven us. God offered His forgiveness towards us while we were yet sinners. Therefore, forgiveness was offered to all unconditionally. But only those who receive the offered forgiveness through repentance and faith are received as sons of God.
Likewise, we are to forgive others their trespasses, just as God has forgiven us our trespasses. We forgive whether or not the other person repents or wants our forgiveness. But we cannot restore such a person to complete relationship until there is repentance on his part. Failure to distinguish between forgiveness and restoration with their different conditions, has caused some people to make themselves vulnerable to unscrupulous people and suffer tragic results. In marriage, we should forgive our mate for anything, even adultery. But If there is no true repentance on our mate’s part, it would be foolish to trust him or her in a sexually tempting situation. We should forgive a business partner for stealing from us whether or not he repents, but that doesn’t mean we ought to put ourselves in a position to let him do it again. Complete restoration is dependent on repentance. Walk in forgiveness today.
There are many scriptures that speak of varying degrees of faith. However, the scriptures also speak of Jesus increasing in wisdom (Lk. 2:52) that certainly refers to His physical intellect drawing more and more on the perfect wisdom of God that was already in Him at birth. It is in this way that we also increase in faith.
At salvation, the believer is given the supernatural faith of God. We had to use the very faith of God (not human faith) to believe the gospel (Eph. 2:8).
That faith came to us through hearing the Word of God (Rom. 10:17), and once we are born again, it becomes an abiding fruit of the Spirit within us.
Every believer is given the same measure of faith at salvation but not all believers use what God has given them. Therefore, it is correct to speak of growing in faith and having great faith or little faith, but it is important to understand that this is speaking of how much faith we use or manifest – not how much faith we were given. All believers were given “the” same measure of faith.
Jesus’ example of the grain of mustard seed underscores the truth that our faith is sufficient if we will just use it without the hindrance of unbelief.
He then continues on into the parable of the servant serving his master to illustrate that our faith is not the problem but rather our use of it. We are using it to serve ourselves instead of our master who is God.
Living by faith is not something special that only the “super-saints” are supposed to do. The Lord expects all of His children to live a supernatural life of faith. He gave you everything you need to do this, just let Him live through you.