Restored

## I Need More

Belief and faith are sometimes intertwined, yet misunderstood when it comes to bringing out what the context surrounding those words is saying. The word for “faith” here comes from the root word that means “believe”, but the actual meaning of faith is to believe to a point where you have complete reliance on or trust in someone. Interestingly, the word faith here is not a verb but a noun. The apostles are not asking Jesus to increase their movement or action plan; they are asking for a stronger trust or reliance on God. Isn’t it easy to trust God until we need to pay a bill, and though we may pray for more green to appear, our trust has become dependent on the paper rather than God. The other night in my daily Bible reading, I ran across an interesting verse in 2 Chronicles 16:12-13, "In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet, and his disease became severe. Yet even in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but sought help from physicians. And Asa slept with his fathers, dying in the forty-first year of his reign." Asa became dependent on what the physicians could do more than what God could do. We're not guaranteed God would have healed Him, but we do see he put his full trust in the physicians and it failed. Do we have a complete and total trust in God to do great works in and through us, or do we have another option just in case it doesn’t pan out the way we’re hoping? Jesus says if we really have total trust in God, then we could do special acts in His name. In Genesis, we read that God gave us dominion over the Earth and thus our redemption is about restoring that original relationship with Him. The emphasis isn't the power, but the relationship.

## Self-Check

How close are you walking with God today? Do you have complete trust and dependence on Him in every area of your life?

## Duty