Want to increase your faith?

[joeb]

Here's 2 steps guaranteed to do the job:

1. Do everything God asks you to do.

2. When you've done everything God asks of you, consider yourself to be useless servant of God.

[Gibs]

The harder our faith is tried and we still hold it the stronger it becomes.

Here is a litte from Sister White,

"No cross, no crown! How can one be strong in the Lord without trials? To have strength, we must have exercise. To have strong faith, we must be placed in circumstances where our faith will be tried. The apostle Paul, just before his martyrdom, exhorted Timothy, “Be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.” [2 Timothy 1:8.] It is through much tribulation that we are to enter the kingdom. Our Saviour was tried in every possible way, and yet he triumphed in God continually. It is our privilege to be strong in the strength of God under all circumstances, and to glory in the cross of Christ.—Vol. 3, p. 67. {GW92 372.2}

The very trials that test our faith most severely, and make it seem that God has forsaken us, are designed to lead us nearer to Christ, that we may lay all our burdens at his feet, and receive the peace he will give us in exchange. . . . When you surrender yourself entirely to God, when you fall all broken upon Jesus, you will be rewarded by a victory the joy of which you have never yet realized. As you review the past with a clear vision, you will see that at the very time when life seemed to you only a perplexity and a burden, Jesus himself was near you, seeking to lead you into the light. Your Father was by your side, bending over you with unutterable love, afflicting you for your good, as the refiner purifies the precious ore. When you have thought yourself forsaken, he has been near you to comfort and sustain. We seldom view Jesus as he is, and are never so ready to receive his help as he is to help us. {GW92 372.3}

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[joeb]

So nobody recognizes Luke 17:5-10?

Quote:

5 And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.

6 And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.

7 But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat?

8 And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink?

9 Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not.

10 So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.

In response to the disciples request to increase their faith Jesus does something odd. First He tells them what they could do if they had faith. Then he uses the example of a servant working for a master and how that master will treat his servant to set the stage for how they are to view themselves. Then He tells them that after they have done everything that they have been commanded to do that they are to say to themselves that they are unprofitable servants: they have only done their duty.

This is His way of increasing the faith of His disciples. Why?

edit: The word useless in my example in the opening post comes from the Greek that was translated as "unprofitable".