Is Faith Easy?
by Cheryl Puckett


Matthew 21:21 Jesus answered and said to them, Truly I say to you, If you have faith, and doubt not, you shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if you shall say to this mountain, Be you removed, and be you cast into the sea; it shall be done.

As a Christian, we believe by faith that we are saved through God's son Jesus Christ, who died on the cross and rose from the dead for each of us.  It's a life changing, seemingly simple decision to believe but once we do, we generally do not doubt that we are saved.  That is Faith.  I don't doubt my salvation, I made a decision to be a Christian, to receive Jesus Christ as my Savior and by faith I am saved.  

1st Thessalonians 1:3 says that we need to 'remember without ceasing your work of faith', that is "your" work of faith, not anyone else's, yours.  You may say,  I don't have faith or have never used my faith, so how can I remember it?  If you received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you have faith.  That is a great place to start, remember without ceasing that you made the decision to accept something so wonderful;  redemption, forgiveness and eternal life.  That took faith!  

 So lets try to not make faith so difficult.  In the scripture at the top of the page, the book of Matthew says you could move a mountain with faith the size of a mustard seed.  That seems HUGE, that can even intimidate many Christians because it's very difficult to accept in our natural reasoning mind that we could ever have faith like that.   Let's step back and remember what faith took to receive salvation; it took a decision and to believe without doubting.  I can accept that without a doubt that I am saved.  So I choose to remember without ceasing my work of faith, that I have no doubts of my salvation.  

Believing in something we cannot see or touch (at the moment) without a doubt seems very difficult for adults, the bible says 'but with God, all things are possible" (Matt 19:26), so seek Him, ask for His help in increasing your faith and removing your doubts.  

To grow your faith, ask God for something according to His word (perhaps for a lost loved one or to believe a promise in the word of God).   Make a decision that you believe it, if you have doubts, pray and ask God to remove the doubts, to help your unbelief.  The key is not to give up, the remembering without ceasing is the faith builder and a doubt killer. Remind yourself that it's possible for you to believe without doubt as you've proven you can in using your faith unto salvation.  As your faith grows and what you are believing for happens then meditate on that as well according to God's word.  Think on your faith.  

Example: So now, according to 1st Thessalonians 1:3 you can remember without ceasing that you have faith to believe for salvation and now you have faith to believe God for a lost loved one who has received salvation.

I sincerely pray this is a help to anyone who needs it.  In my day to day job I'm paid to provide analysis, so as you can imagine,  I tend to over analyze and rarely does anything stay 'simple'. I have found that I must seek God to help me understand the basics so I can build on that.  In my prayer time this morning, I felt there must be others out there who could benefit from this as well.   My intentions are not to formulate faith, but to simplify it as I understand it and prayerfully it will help others.