I want you to grow in your faith. 

This is, literally, my job. To help you grow in a relationship with God and His people in such a way that you know God better. You can see Him in your life and you know how to live your life as He wants it, which makes your life better. 

When we start to talk about having faith and growing faith we tend to start measuring. We say things like so-and-so has a lot of faith. What we mean to say is that the person we are talking about has taken action or lives a life that, to our eyes, is full of faith. But how do we know? Do we measure the number of days one fasts? Or the number of times they have read through the Bible? If someone hasn’t missed a Sunday service all year are they more faithful? Or maybe they feel faith. Maybe they are moved by the music on a Sunday and lift their hands up? Or, they know their Bible so well that they can lead a Bible study? 

All of these examples are actions that a faithful person might do, but they aren’t what a faithful person must do. But every faithful person must do something. It is not enough simply to say you have faith. Jesus would say there has to be fruits. Fruits are the external manifestation of an inner reality.

We don’t get to be the judge. Our human perspective is not the means of judgment, thanks be to God. For some of us a day without food would be unthinkable. For others a week without food is a reasonable spiritual practice. But whether a day or a week if it's done in a spirit of competitiveness or self interest it's not a Spiritual practice. Fasting to say you’ve fasted, for example, isn’t fasting; it’s starving stupidly. God is the judge of our hearts and intentions. We can't lie to Him about what we’ve done or why. 

Growing in faith isn’t about measuring up to someone else's faith. To grow in faith we must deepen our relationship with God, with our savior Jesus. Often that means removing luxuries, or fasting, or spending a moment each day in devotion (reading from the Bible and praying). It might be increasing your offering by 1%, or signing up to commit to a service team. But it can also be praying out loud. Showing up for Sunday school for the first time. Even getting baptized. 

Because faith is about getting closer to God we don’t know where we are along the way. Only God does. That means that your step might look different from mine. Only God knows where you are in your faith journey. All I, or anyone else, can do is try and be faithful. For some that may mean admitting they don’t know everything. That God might have insight. It might mean that they admit for the first time that there is a God above all other gods.

The bottom line for faith is when any one of us steps toward God, in thought, word, or deed, without any proof and, with our heart, soul and mind.  

The more often we make these moves the easier they get. The easier they get the closer we find ourselves with the LORD. To be as close as possible is the very purpose of a Christian life. 

If you’ve fallen away I hope that you redouble your efforts. If you're raising little ones I hope that you share your spiritual practices with them so they can see and learn how to grow. If you’re on the cusp of your comfort zone I hope you take the leap of faith. 

I hope that you are growing spiritually closer to Jesus.