Luke 17:5-10 – Faith and Pride

Faith is the root of salvation. It is the hand by which the soul grabs hold of Jesus Christ, and is united to Him and saved. It is the secret of all spiritual comfort and health. From our faith will come peace, hope, strength, courage, and victory over the world. When the apostles ask for more faith, they are wise.

Faith is a grace that grows in stages. It is not in full strength and perfection as soon as it is planted in the heart by the Holy Spirit. There is little faith and great faith, weak faith and strong faith. We see this in the Bible and in the lives of Christians around us. The more faith a Christian has, the more happy, holy, and useful he will be. It should be our daily prayer for our faith to grow.

Have you any faith at all? This is the first question you should ask. Thousands come to church who have no faith. True faith is not natural to man. It comes from heaven – it is the gift of God. If you have any faith, pray for more of it. Do not be satisfied with a small and weakly faith.

Our Lord Jesus Christ gives a heavy blow to our pride. We all think far higher of ourselves and what we do than we should. Pride can be a very subtle disease that shows itself in many ways, and while we are good at noticing it in others, we are very bad at spotting it in ourselves. To give up our pride is essential to salvation. If we want to be saved, we must admit that we need to be saved, that we have no good or worthy thing in us. We must be willing to trust in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and live our lives knowing that at our best we only do our duty, and have nothing to brag about. And we are only able to do our duty if God gives us the strength. True humility is seeing ourselves for who we really are and God for who He really is.

Questions
1. Where does faith come from?
2. Why do we want more faith?

Prayer Points
1. Pray for more faith.
2. Use prayer points from your congregation.
3. Pray for family matters.