I’ve often heard it said, “I don’t have enough faith to be a Christian. I want to, but I’m not good enough or strong enough. My faith is so weak. I don’t know if I have what it takes.”
This statement is not unusual or uncommon. In fact, it’s endemic across the religious spectrum, not only for people who have spent their entire lives in church, but also for those who have been absent from church altogether.
Regardless of religious background, the struggle to ‘have faith’ is a genuine one, and it can come from a variety of legitimate reasons.
Perhaps the struggle to ‘have faith’ comes from observing the faith of others—such as family or friends—who seemingly ‘have it all together.’ And since matters of faith have come more difficult for you, it makes you feel inferior by comparison. You think, “How do they have so much faith? I don’t think I’ll ever be like that. I just can’t ‘believe’ like they do. Maybe Christianity isn’t for me…”
Or perhaps the struggle to ‘have faith’ comes from not having the privilege of learning the Bible at a young age like others have. “I feel so far behind compared to others. ‘Having faith’ seems like such a distant reality because I have so much to learn. I’ll never get to the point where I can finally have a faith like I’m suppose to have…”
Or perhaps ‘having faith’ seems difficult because you’ve experienced trauma, which can naturally incline you towards skepticism or defensiveness in general. “How am I suppose to just ‘have faith’ when all this has happened in my life? If life wasn’t so hard, matters of faith would be much easier for me. I’m jealous of people who seem to ‘have faith’ more intuitively, simply because they haven’t experienced tragedy like I have.”
Or lastly, perhaps ‘having faith’ and/or ‘being the good Christian’ seems impossible in light of the grave sins and mistakes that still haunt you to this day. “Other people—who don’t have ‘issues’ like me—are much more qualified for faith than I am… I’ll never be able to have faith like them; I’m just too messed up.”
I’m well acquainted with many of these thoughts myself. It’s natural to think that the people who struggle most to have faith in Christ are the ones who have struggled with reasons similar to those mentioned above. But interestingly, in the Bible, we actually see quite the reverse.
The people who struggled most with having a deep, abiding faith in Christ were not the irreligious outsiders, but the religious insiders. All throughout the New Testament, it was the Pharisees—the religious elite of the day—who struggled to have true, Christian faith much more than the religious outcasts did, like the Gentiles, prostitutes, and tax collectors. But how so?
The Struggle Of Faith
We can answer this question by looking at the basis of people’s faith and, therefore, the root-issue of their struggle, not just what is expressed on the surface for all to see.
The Bible impartially shows the struggle of both the religious and irreligious to ‘have faith’. It shows why the Pharisees struggled to ‘have faith’, and also why the prostitutes struggled to ‘have faith.’ Their struggle was manifested in different ways, but it actually stemmed from the same root cause.
The Pharisees, for example, struggled to grasp saving faith in Christ because they considered that the strength of their faith would make them right with God. The prostitutes and tax collectors, however, struggled to arrive at a saving faith in Christ precisely because they considered that the strength of their faith (or lack thereof) wouldn’t make them right with God.
Ironically, it was the Pharisees—the ones who considered themselves to have ‘great faith’—who struggled to find saving faith in Christ much more than the irreligious did. And equally ironic, it was the irreligious’ admission of weakness and inadequacy that actually positioned them to arrive at saving faith quicker than the religious elite who thought they ‘had it all together.’
In other words, the irreligious people got to the end of their rope faster than the religious people who considered themselves self-sufficient. The religiously weak—who knew they struggled to ‘have faith’—were the ones who were forced to consider something outside of the strength of their own faith to save them. The ones who considered themselves ‘strong’ on their own accord, however, were the ones who were blinded to their own need.
However, even though the religious people struggled more, the root-cause of the struggle to ‘have faith’ was exactly the same for both parties. And similarly, the root-cause of your struggle today to ‘have faith’ stems from the same root-issue that the religious and the irreligious experienced over 2000 years ago. Namely, the universal, age-old, root-issue in a struggle to ‘have faith’ happens when we are preoccupied with the strength of our own faith as the basis for being right with God, not Christ.
The greatest struggle of faith is to be preoccupied with the strength of your faith as the basis for salvation. And the greatest danger of faith—as the Pharisees demonstrate—is to be so preoccupied with the strength of your faith that you actually feel self-sufficient with your ability ‘to have’ faith, falsely believing that your standing with God is secure because of you.
See, religious people struggled with their own ‘strength’ of faith (self-sufficiency); irreligious people struggled with their own ‘weakness’ of faith (self-deprecatory). But their struggle after all, was two sides of the same coin; that is, each party was preoccupied with their ‘degree’ of faith. And it’s the same problem that we face today when we find it difficult to ‘have faith’ in Christ: we look at our degree of faith to save us, not the Author of faith who can. All problems of faith, therefore, come not from one’s degree of faith, but where one places their faith.
The temptation for everyone is to put your faith in the strength of your faith. But according to the Bible, the solution is not increasing the degree of your faith to save you, but putting your faith upon Jesus. And even in your day to day life, your degree of faith will not secure greater degrees of love and acceptance from God. Only faith in Jesus–regardless of the degree–will not only save you, but also secure the full love and acceptance of God for you.
Christian Faith Is Not About Your Faith
My friend, this is really good news. You aren’t saved by your ability to have faith, or the strength of your faith. You’re saved by the Object of your faith. This is why you need not fret when you feel as if you have weak faith, or feel inadequate or disqualified from Christianity because of it.
See, weak faith in a strong Savior is still saving faith. In fact, weak faith in a strong Savior is as “saving faith” as strong faith—because it’s not about your ability to believe, but about the Savior’s ability to save. Weak faith in a strong Savior is just as ‘saving faith’ as strong faith in a strong Savior precisely because it’s not your faith that ultimately saves you, but the One who you’ve put your faith upon—however strong or weak. In a sense, saving faith doesn’t need to be strong or weak—it just needs to be directed at the saving figure. And once your faith is there, this strong Savior will make your faith stronger precisely because you’ll be abiding in the One who is strong. Christian faith is not about your faith; it’s about Christ.
Mustard-Seed Faith
If you grew up in the church, you’re probably familiar with the peculiar saying, ‘Faith like a mustard seed.’ This phrase comes from Matthew 17:20, where Jesus provides an interesting exhortation to have faith.
“For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never mustered up (excuse the pun) enough faith to move a mountain. Have you? I’d love to meet you if so. Jesus isn’t talking about becoming an elite Christian who’s reached Jedi-status, who can channel the ‘force’ of the Holy Spirit to literally move mountains. It doesn’t seem like that’s what Jesus is saying here.
In this passage, Jesus’ call to have faith is not primarily about your quantity of faith, but about the quality of the One you place your faith upon. If Jesus wanted to inspire great degrees of faith, he would not have used a mustard-seed as his illustration. He would have used something much, much larger. However, if Jesus was aiming to emphasize faith in a Person–however small or large your faith might be–then comparing our faith to a mustard-seed would have been a perfect illustration. See, mustard seed was perhaps the smallest seed in their agricultural context. Fittingly, therefore, Jesus juxtaposed a mustard seed with a mountain to create an astonishing contrast, and to help us see an even more astonishing truth.
Jesus is essentially saying that the smallest degree of faith—even as small as a mustard seed—in the right thing can make a much greater difference than large faith—even as large as a mountain—in the wrong thing.
This is why the faith that’s the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. It’s not because it can actually move mountains. It’s because it’s placed on the One who made the mountains and can move them. A small, mustard-seed of faith in Christ is all it takes to move heaven into earth in your life—not because it was right amount of faith on your part—but because it’s rightly directed upon the One who closed the gap between heaven and earth with his own life. Jesus’ teaching on ‘mustard-seed faith’ is not a lesson about the strength of your faith, but about the Object of your faith who made the mountains.
Christian Faith Works In Real Life
There are several reasons for why this system of faith is so compelling, beautiful—and in my belief—the true faith. It’s conceptually, practically, and morally coherent. Here’s why.
When saving faith is dependent upon an object of faith as opposed to the strength of your faith, it produces a deep freedom and humility in you—no matter your degree of your faith. When saving faith is based on a Savior—and not on your own degree of faith—two main things happen:
1) people of strong faith are fundamentally prevented from being condescending or self-righteous to those who have weak faith, and
2) people of weak faith are fundamentally protected from feeling intimidated by or inferior to people of strong faith.
Since saving faith is based on a Savior—and not on people’s faith—people are necessarily safeguarded from the moral ailments of boasting (if their faith is strong) and despairing (if their faith is weak). The Christian system of faith, therefore, is not just salvific, but sanctifying. Jesus gets the glory, and we get not only salvation, but also deep humility and empathy towards all people.
People can only rejoice in the Object of their faith, not their own faith. And in doing so, it fundamentally destroys both self-righteousness and self-deprecation, and it naturally produces humility and confidence in believers—both weak and strong. Only this type of faith in a Savior can give us a saving relationship with God and also saving relationships with one another–at the same time.
World’s ‘Faith’ Does Not Work In Real Life
However, our world does not operate on this basis of faith. It operates on the strength of your own faith, or in laymen terms, the faith of ‘good intentions.’
The world holds the premise that if you have ‘have good intentions’—whoever you are—you’ll be fine—however you want to define it. But their premise is fundamentally misdirected: that salvation comes from inside (i.e., your degree of faith) not from outside (i.e., a Savior). But strong faith in the wrong thing will not save you. This type of faith does not produce humility and confidence, but despair and pride. It produces Pharisees who succeed and Pharisees who fail.
For example, if you feel secure because of the strength of your faith, you inevitably run into a moral dead-end: 1) You will feel anxious because you will never know ‘how much faith is enough faith’? 2) You will despair when you show signs of weakness, because weakness is not just weakness, but a sign of inadequacy and disqualification. 3) You will naturally incline into self-righteousness and self-sufficiency. You will not be able to empathize with others who have weak faith. Why do I know this? Because I lived this life as a Christian, wrongly deriving a sense of security from my strength of faith.
And the converse is equally detrimental. If you feel insecure because of your lack of faith, you will also inevitably run into another moral dead-end: 1) You will despair when you compare yourself to others who seem to be doing better. 2) You will feel like a victim to things that have made your faith difficult and blame God, others, and yourself. 3) You will naturally incline into self-deprecation and hopelessness. You, too, will not be able to empathize with those who have stronger faith, because their existence makes your struggle all that more unbearable. Why do I know this? Because I also lived this life as a Christian, wrongly deriving a sense of security from my strength of faith (or lack thereof).
See, no matter who you are, if your basis of spiritual security rests upon your degree of faith, you will inevitably vacillate between these two polar extremes of pride and despair, of anxiety and delusion, of jealousy and callousness. You will look down on others to whom you measure better than, and conversely, you will despair when others measure better than you.
If your ‘saving faith’ comes from the inside, starts with you, and ends with you—you will invariably find the reverse of Christian faith. It will not be a saving faith in God, but an insecure faith with God. It will not be sanctifying faith with others, but polarizing faith to others.
A faith based on the strength of your faith will fail you—no matter how strong or weak. Only a faith upon a Savior can save—no matter how strong or weak.
Your Weakness Is Your Strength
Those who struggle to ‘have faith’ often see it as a weakness. But according to the Bible, this weakness to ‘have faith’ on your own accord is actually your greatest strength (2 Co. 12:9). It’s not a disadvantage, but an advantage. How? Because recognizing the weakness of your own ability to ‘have faith’ will be the driving component to grasping true faith, which is something that is not achieved by your spiritual strength, but received because of God’s grace.
Do you feel spiritually weak? Do you struggle to ‘have faith’? Then you should be encouraged—because according to the Bible, you couldn’t be positioned better for arriving at a deep, abiding faith. Your admission of weakness positions you to finally receive true faith, which is not something you muster up, but Someone to whom you bow down.
The Author of Faith
Ultimately, what everyone needs for salvation is not a so much a ‘what’ as much as a ‘Who.’ It’s not a degree of faith that we need most, but the Author and Finisher of it.
At the same time, however, the Bible does not call us to remain weak in our faith in Jesus. The Bible is quite clear. Jesus takes our faith very seriously, and he cares infinitely more about growing the muscle of our faith in him more than we ever could. If you feel weak in faith, be encouraged by these verses which make clear that your faith is first and foremost God’s project.
Jesus is the author of your faith: “Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Heb. 12:2)
Jesus is the keeper of your faith: “[The Lord] will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1:8-9).
Jesus is the igniter of your faith: “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).
Jesus is the cultivator of your faith: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Cor. 3:6).
Jesus is the completer of your faith: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).
Don’t you see, weary Christian? The faith that saves you for eternity—and even the faith that leads you for today—is not ultimately dependent upon you. And that’s really, really good news. Only the Christian system of faith can give you this great hope and freedom. Christianity prescribes a saving faith that is not primarily a structure to hold on to, but a strong Person who holds on to you.
Do you feel broken, tired, or heavy-laden? Go to Jesus, just like a desperate man in Mark 9 cried to Jesus, “Help my unbelief!” (Mk. 9:23-25). He will strengthen your faith if you come to him. For he has never forsaken any who seek him (Ps. 9:10).
