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In touch with Dr. Charles Stanley

Reaching the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ

through sound biblical teaching

Next on In Touch,

Levels of Faith in the Life of the believer

When you face difficulties and trials

and hardships in life,

how do you respond? Do you respond

with doubt and fear and anxiety and fretting

or do you respond by faith?

And if you respond by faith, what level of faith?

You say what do you mean by "What level of faith?"

That's right, what level of faith?

You say, "Well, how do you know what these levels are?"

Well we're going to talk about it.

How do you distinguish one from the other?

What does it mean in my life?

How does it affect my life?

Speaking of levels of faith, well we all operate

on one of three levels of faith.

And the longer you live, certainly the more faith you and I ought to have,

and the higher up in these levels we ought to go in our faith.

But some people will stay all of their lives on the lowest level because

Number one, maybe they don't even know that there are levels of faith.

Secondly, too afraid to launch out. Too

fearful to trust God. And so what happens is

you go through life and you miss His best

because you never grow in your faith.

And that's what I am going to talk 
about in this message, and that is the

levels of faith in the life 
of the believer.

And it is very evident in scripture 
that faith is very, very important

in the eyes of God, and that He sees

faith as very important in our life.

And so, what we want to talk 
about in this message

is this: How to raise your faith level.

How to get in a position, where you and 
your relationship to God, or

the way you trust Him will position you, listen,
to be blessed to the maximum

of your potential because

the way you trust Him determines 
the way the blessings come.

You don't trust Him? You 
don't get blessed.

You trust Him? You get blessed.

And the more you trust Him, and 
the way that you are able

walk in these levels of faith,

the greater the blessings that 
come in your way.

Think about how absolutely 
essential and important faith is.

And let's think about it in this light:

If you look at the life of Jesus, 
look at His ministry,

here is what you discover. You discover

that the theme of faith permeated 
the whole ministry

of Jesus. No matter what.

And I want to give you a few 
verses of scripture ...

Now, I won't have you turn to all
of these because

I have enough of them for you to turn to.

But I want you to think about some 
of these verses for example,

you find in the scriptures concerning

His healing ministry. Listen to what

He is continually saying, when He's 
confronting people,

whether they are paralyzed, whether they are blind,

or whatever the situation may be.

Listen, for example, in Matthew 9

He says to this lady, "Daughter, your 
faith has made you well."

Then in Matthew 15, "O woman, your 
faith is great;

be it done unto you as you wish."

And in the second chapter of Mark. When 
these fellas are

tearing up the roof of this man's house and letting

their friend down by ropes,

so he could finally get to Jesus 
and be healed,

Jesus said to them seeing their faith,

"Son, your sins are forgiven.

Then he says in Mark 10 to the blind beggar,

"Go your way, your faith has made you whole."

And again He says, "Your faith has saved you. Receive

your sight. Your faith has made you well."

"Be it done unto you according to your faith."

All through the gospels, Matthew, Mark,

and Luke especially, what you find

is Jesus- the theme of his relationship

to this people, this needy people,

who have a health problem,
whatever it might be

it's always, listen, based on their faith.

Remember he said on one occasion?

He couldn't do any miracles in a particular place because of their unbelief.

They didn't have any faith. They wouldn't trust Him.

And often times, you and I miss out on God's best blessings

because we won't trust Him.

We don't believe that He loves us.

We don't believe that he will provide our needs. We don't

believe that He will heal us. We don't believe

that He cares that much for us.

But if you look at His ministry, what 
was he continually saying?

It was, listen, it was trust Him. Faith, faith, faith, faith, faith.

So if that's true in His ministry in His day,

if it was so important that he magnified the subject of faith,

nothing's changed. Because, you see, in our lifestyle

in our life times, in the culture in which we live,

It makes no difference in what generation or what culture

Faith permeates every aspect of our life.