Every believer has dry seasons. There are times when our faith is lively and vigorous. At other times we wonder if prayer is just talking to ourselves. Though our union with Christ is unbreakable our communion with him is variable.
Just as in any relationship our communion is often in direct proportion to our faith and love. If I sin against you our relationship is going to be harmed. Likewise, if I feel slighted by you then it will impact the way we relate to one another. How much worse does a human relationship get if one person loses trust in the other one? In the same way—our lively experience of the Lord is often in proportion to our faith.
So how do we grow in our faith?
In one of his letters, John Newton lays out three ways that believers can grow in their faith. Ultimately, it is up to the Lord but this is the type of climate in which faith will have a tendency to grow.
1. See Christ in the Scriptures
Newton is certainly correct that “all our abatements, declensions, and [sluggishness], arise from a defect of faith”. When we are seeing Christ as He really is in the Scriptures then our faith will be strong. It is when he becomes cloudy to our eyes and we only see him dimly that the sparkle of sin is able to catch our eye.
Seeing Christ is the way to increase in our faith. But where are we to see Christ but in the Scriptures? Therefore, “a careful, frequent perusal of the Scriptures, which testify of him, is a fit and necessary means of improving our faith”. I often challenge folks by asking if they’d still be alive if they ate physical food as much as they ate spiritual food (like the Bible). It is no wonder that our faith weakens when we spend such little time in His Word.
2. Engage in Personal Prayer
Newton believed that the Spirit was “promised and limited to those who ask it”. As such he believed that personal prayer was absolutely necessary. The Scriptures and prayer could sustain you in a dungeon or a desert but “nothing will compensate for the neglect of these”.
I need to hear this word. Nothing can replace Scripture and prayer for growing in the faith. Not blogs. Not Christian books. Not Christian radio. Not lectures. Not podcasts. Not family time. Not television. Not solitude. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing can compensate for a neglect of personal prayer and Scripture reading. “Our souls would grow dry and lean, unless these secret exercises were kept up with some degree of exactness”.
3. Obedience
Let us say that you have a phenomenal time of Scripture reading and prayer. And during your time in the Word the Lord convicts you by His Spirit through His Word that you need to heal a fractured relationship with a brother in Christ, if you willfully refuse to obey the Lord you will “shut up the avenues of comfort, and check the growth of faith”. The next time you come to the Word and to the throne of grace you’ll find a coldness in your communion with the Lord.
This word from Newton is sobering:
The experience of past years has taught me to distinguish between ignorance and disobedience. The Lord is gracious to the weakness of his people; many involuntary mistakes will not interrupt their communion with him; he pities their infirmity, and teaches them to do better. But if they dispute his known will, and act against the dictates of conscience, they will surely suffer for it. This will weaken their hands, and bring distress into their hearts. Willful sin sadly perplexes and retards our progress. May the Lord keep us from it! It raises a dark cloud, and hides the Sun of Righteousness from our view; and until he is pleased freely to shine forth again, we can do nothing; and for this perhaps he will make us wait, and cry out often, “How long, O Lord! how long?” (On Faith, and Communion of Saints)
If you have unrepentant and willful sin between you and the Lord, repent today. There is are few things sweeter than the restoration that happens after repentance. If your relationship with the Lord is cloudy it might be because you’ve balked at the Light.
It seems simple really—read your Bible, engage in prayer, and obey what the Lord tells you. But there really are no more certain ways of growth than these simple (though difficult) means.
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