If you want to get stronger, you constantly have to be lifting something heavier than you've lifted before. One measure of growing strength is what the weight lifters call your bench press. It's how much you can lift over your head as you lie on a weight bench. If you have ever worked out in a weight room then you know what I am about to say is true. No one wants to keep the amount they can lift where it is. They're always adding a little more weight to that bar. So, if your bench press is 170 pounds, you want to go to 180... 190. If you've been lifting 200, you work to get it to 210... 220. Always pressing more. Now let me ask you a question, would you believe that to be true with other things as well? I believe God wants us to build more than biceps and triceps; don’t you? God wants us to build faith muscles the ability to trust Him more than we’ve trusted Him before. If we just proceed on the basis of what we can see, what we can figure out, what we can pull off, then that is all about us and none about HIM. God helps us build more faith muscles so we can win greater victories than ever before? By giving us something to lift that is heavier than we've ever had to lift before.
Romans 4:1 What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?
Romans 4:2 For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.
Romans 4:3 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. (Put to his account)
Abraham’s faith started off real simple. God told Abraham to leave where he was but wasn’t told where he would be going. Abraham had only a 180 faith. But he would have to trust God more and more like a weight lifter and built up his faith to a 220 faith. Abraham was told that he would have a son when he was old; this was going to take more than a 180 faith; that’s more like a 220 faith. Once again Abraham trusted God.
Romans 4:19 And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara's womb:
Romans 4:20 He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;
Romans 4:21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.
Then God one day told him to take that son to a mountain and kill him. Do what? Yes take the son I gave you and take him to a place I will show you.
Genesis 22:2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
This is more than a180 even 220 it’s a 240 faith; I mean this is big time putting his trust in God. But Abraham trusted God and all came out fine. What about you and I? Where is our faith with 170 being the lowest or a 240 faith being the highest? If our faith is still at 180 then our relationship with our heavenly Father has not grown very much. Remember we built our faith much like a weight lifter a little at a time until we are at the 240 faith. You may be waiting on results from a test, is your faith in the results of the test or in God our savior? I’ll not soon forget the man who was having some problems. He went to the Doctor where they ran some test. The test results returned and the Doctor called the man to his office. There the Doctor told him that he had a brain tumor and without treatment only a few months to life. The man thanked the Doctor got up and left his office and lived about 7 months and died. You may say why did you tell us that? Because here was a man who had 240 faith because he knew without a shadow of a doubt where he was going at the point of death. That is 240 faith! So where is your faith and how much are you trusting your Heavenly Father? What’s you level of trust 170,180, 190, 200, 210, 220, or 240? It all depends on how much time you spend increasing your faith.
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