Trust Jesus – Don’t Over Estimate Your Faith
Put Your Faith in Jesus
Trust Jesus and not YOUR faith!. It is easy to lose our focus and begin to look at our faith instead of Jesus. We need faith. Faith is critical for the Christian life. We are to live our lives by faith. (Rom. 1:17, Gal. 3:11, Heb. 10:38) Faith is how we are saved. (Ephesians 2:8) It is by faith we receive God’s wisdom. It is by faith we receive His direction. Faith is how we receive anything from God. Without faith it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11:6) Faith for a believer is very important. We should be continually growing and developing our faith. Faith in the simplest of terms is to trust Jesus.
Trust Jesus – Stay Focused on Him
We need to be careful not to shift our trust from Jesus to OUR FAITH. Don’t make the mistake of putting faith in your faith. It is faith in God and His Word that brings results. You can always trust Jesus. You can be assured He is always faithful, even if we are not. (2Timothy 2:13) We can and will fail particularly if we over estimate our faith. In other words we shift our focus and confidence on OUR faith instead of keeping our faith focused on Him. He IS the author and finisher of our faith. (Hebrews 12:2)
The apostle Peter is a case in point. He was one of those closest to Jesus. He was the brash, outspoken and zealous disciple of Jesus. He often exhibited great faith as he followed Jesus. In fact in John 13:36-38 we find Simon Peter boasting of how great his faith was. “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? Jesus knew what would happen in just few days. Peter would deny Him three times
Practically every message I’ve ever heard about Peter attributes his failure to his lack of faith, but Peter’s denial of Jesus wasn’t a lack of faith. In fact he was confident of faith and was bragging about how he would stick with Jesus no matter what. His problem was – HE OVERESTIMATED HIS FAITH. He believed he was ready to follow Jesus to the death. He said, “I will lay down my life for you.” However, Jesus knew Peter wasn’t ready. Jesus knew the exact measure of Peter’s faith.
It’s not that Peter did not have faith. In fact he had faith to cast his nets out into the deep and Peter is the one who had faith to get out of his boat to walk on the water, but he wasn’t ready to follow Jesus to the cross even though he thought he was. He over estimated his faith.
Don’t Trust Your Faith – Trust Jesus
Here’s my point, there will be times in our lives where our faith is tested and just like Peter we may fall short. We will over estimate OUR faith. We will encounter situations and difficulties that seem beyond us and create questions we can’t answer. We may wavier and even have doubt. At moments like those we are not to become discouraged or give up, but use them as opportunities to learn how to trust Jesus. Faith is a work in progress. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God. (Romans 10:17)
No matter the circumstance Jesus is always with us. He never leaves us nor forsakes us. He knows our heart and knows the measure of faith that we have just like He knew Peter’s. The good news is while we tend to overestimate our own faith, we underestimate God’s grace and His willingness to help us in our moments of weakness.
This is not an excuse to fail or not live our life by faith. Instead we should be challenged in those moments to develop our faith. Jesus only expects us to exercise the faith that we have, not the faith that we have yet to develop.
So, don’t trust in your faith, but put your trust in Jesus and live by faith the best that you can knowing that He is with you always working in you to help you grow your faith.