Jesus said, “Have faith in God.” Mark 11:22 Faith is more than hope. Hope looks forward to God’s promises, and faith trusts Him even before those promises are seen. The Bible is full of accounts of men and women who exhibited great, seemingly impossible faith in God. Faith compelled them to act. Because they chose to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7), we are still talking about them today.
- Noah heeded God’s warning that there would be a flood by building an ark to save his family from a flood, though the flood had not yet been seen (Genesis 6:13–22; Hebrews 11:7)
- David fought a giant that no one else would because he knew that God had rescued him before and would rescue him again (1 Samuel 17:32–37, 45–47)
- Abraham obeyed God and left his home to go to an unknown land because God said that He would give Abraham this land as an inheritance (Genesis 12:1–4; Hebrews 11:8).
- Sarah, Abraham’s wife, believed God would keep His promise of a child, though she was too old to have a child and was barren (Hebrews 11:11; Genesis 18:9–15; Genesis 21:1–2).
- Abraham obeyed God by offering this same promised child as a sacrifice, reasoning that God would bring him back to life again (Genesis 22:1–14; Hebrews 11:17–19).
Faith Compels
To those who do not know God, these stories of faith seem far-fetched and hard to understand. But the more you know God, the more you realize that these men and women were not acting in blind faith, but they were acting in biblical faith. They had a spiritual understanding and assurance that God existed and would keep His promises.
Faith compels you to act in ways that you never would have expected, like building a boat to save yourself from a flood when it has never even rained, or fighting a giant that everyone is too scared to fight, or believing a promise that, in the natural, just doesn’t make sense.
Faith that never produces fruit is dead faith (James 2:17, 26). The stories of these heroes of faith are meant to encourage us to pursue a faith like theirs. When looking at these biblical acts of faith, it seems God gave these people far more faith than the average human being. But this is simply not true.
Every believer has been given faith by God, and that faith can grow (Romans 12:3). God does not give some Christians more faith than others; we all start out the same. God gives us tools to grow and strengthen our faith, but what we do with them is up to us. We can choose to remain where we are, or we can choose to increase our faith.
My goal is to pursue faith every day just as the writer of Hebrews implores us to do:
“Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” Hebrews 12:1
Ways to Increase Your Faith
One of the tools that God gives us to increase our faith is His Word – the Bible. Just as our bodies grow with physical nourishment, our faith grows through spiritual nourishment. Jesus, in Matthew 4:4, said, “People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
Feed your spirit by reading and meditating on the Bible. Verse by verse, the Bible reveals who God is: His love, His faithfulness, His kindness, His glory. By seeking God through His Word, we grow in our knowledge of Him. The more we know and understand who He is, the more we can trust Him. As we grow in our knowledge of God, our trust in Him deepens.
Another way to increase our faith is to exercise it. We exercise our faith by obeying God and doing what His word says. Obedience requires trust, and trust requires knowing the One you obey. Not everyone starts out with a faith like Abraham. But that is okay. Start where you are right now. Just as exercising your muscles requires some discomfort, so does stepping out in faith. I don’t know what this looks like for you. Maybe it is giving up something you enjoy in order to spend more time with God, Radical Obedience – What Happens When You Say Yes to God, or talking to someone at a gas station, Woman Interrupted, or maybe it is telling someone about Jesus. For each person, it is different.
Do not stand still in your faith. Take action. Maybe you are not ready to fight a giant or leave your home for the unknown, but you can do something. If you need encouragement, open your Bible to Hebrews 11 and read about the heroes of faith. Listen to others’ testimonies about how they stepped out in faith, and God came through for them. The same God who was faithful to them is faithful today. And finally, look back in your own life and remind yourself what God has done for you.
You Cannot Please God Through Willpower #shorts
Making Him Known May 29, 2026 3:38 pm