A MEASURE OF FAITH
Romans 12:3 – KJV – For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. (Notice, he said the measure of faith, not a measure of faith). In other words, everyone received the same measure of faith. When you come to Christ or are born again, you get a measure of faith.
Romans 12:3 – TPT (The passion Translation) --- God has given me grace to speak a warning about pride. I would ask each of you to be emptied of self – promotion and not create a false image of your importance. You see, he is actually talking about not being prideful.
Instead, honestly assess your worth by using your God-given faith as the standard of measurement, and then, you will see your true value with an appropriate self-esteem.
{Pride is thinking more higher than we ought to think, or that we are better than other people or God made us better than someone else}
Romans 12:3 --- Youngs literal translation --- For I say, through the grace that was given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think above what it behoveth to think, but to think so as to think wisely, as to each God did deal a measure of faith.
Let’s look at all translations together to get what Jesus said about a measure of faith:
1) We were all given a measure of faith: No one was given more than another. It may look that way from a human stand point, especially when we see a friend, co-worker or a minister use their faith and see immediate results:
2) Everyone was given a measure of faith. This means that everyone was given the same amount of faith as every other human being. Just because someone receives their request more quickly does not mean they were given more faith than you or your neighbor: It simply means that they took what measure of faith that was given to them and built it up until it became large, strong and powerful faith.
It is much like an athlete or a weight lifter: They were not born with larger muscles or faster legs than you or I, It simply means they took the body that they were born with and built it up through exercise weight lifting or running.
Anyone of us could have decided to pick an exercise program and stayed with it until they built their muscles to be what they wanted.
Example: When I was growing up there was a man on TV that was called Charles Atlas, he had big bulging muscles and could lift hundreds of pounds. He looked like it as well when you saw him on TV. He would stand there for a photo and you could see muscles bulging from his arms, chest, legs and hands.
The reason for these muscles were not because he was born that way, but he chose to workout and build and strengthen his muscles until they bulged out.
As a young lad, I wanted to be like that so I would go outside and fill two buckets with rocks and found a metal bar and put those buckets on the bar then I would proceed to lift it up and down.
That would have been a good start, but the trouble was, I did not have the stamina to stay with it. I would do it for a while, then I did not touch them for a while. Then I would do it again and then stop for a while until I finally gave up. You see, there was no consistency to what I was doing.
Well, guess what, I never became a Charles Atlas, I didn’t even make it to Charles Atlas Junior.
My muscles did not bulge like his. Why? I did not stay with the building of my muscles.
It is the same way with faith. You must stay with it by using your faith on small things and build up to larger and larger things. You must use your faith, even though it looks like it is not working.
Faith building is and must be constant. It must be a daily thing for a life time, and you must start small and build up until it gets stronger and stronger.
That measure of faith that was given to you when you were born again or when you accepted and made Jesus Lord, can be built up and made strong. Use your faith daily.
Again, Faith must be constant. You start out small and keep at it until your faith starts bringing in what you are believing for.
As you receive what you are believing for, move on to something larger and build that muscles bigger and bigger.
You might see some minister or friend that seems like they no more than speak out of their mouth what they want and got it.
Again, this is not because they were given more faith than you. It simply means they lifted the bar of faith, as to speak, added to it like a bar of weights, until their faith seemed to grow over night.
No one’s faith goes from a weakling to a powerhouse overnight. It takes diligence and daily practice or work-out, stamina to build strong faith.
Faith will work for you as it does for anyone else. Just remember, you can be as strong in faith as anyone, Just have the stamina.
HAPPY BUILDING
Comments