Written by Pastor Jack Wellman– John Piper
Devotional: 5 Ways Faith Changes Your World
Faith can really change your world if you allow it. How powerful can faith be? According to Jesus Christ, if you only had faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains into the sea. That’s how powerful faith is. Faith can change your world dramatically. Here are five ways that faith can change your world dramatically.
Faith Changes How You See Yourself
The Bible is filled with stories of imperfect and flawed people who had limitations. You have Rahab, the harlot. You have Gideon, the coward. You have David, the boy shepherd. These people saw themselves based on their limitations but God saw them through his own eyes. He saw them as great people. Rahab became an ancestor of Jesus, Gideon a mighty victory of the Israelite people, and David became its greatest king. That is a testimony to the fact that when you have faith in God, it changes how you see yourself and it changes your destiny.
Faith Changes How You See Others
It’s easy to look at people as broken and limited and really as people who won’t amount to anything or to look at people and see only the worst. Submit to God and let him take over your life. Your empowered faith will help you see people in the best light possible.
When you expect more from other people they live up to your heightened expectation. There was a study of public school teachers who were led to mistakenly believe that their class was a class of gifted students. What do you think happened? These normal students started producing grades similar to gifted students. The only big difference was their teachers had a heightened expectation of their capabilities. That’s what happens when we let faith change how we see others. It brings out the very best in them.
Faith Changes How You Define Meaning
It’s very important to live life with a sense of meaning. A life without it is really a life not worth living at all. And unfortunately, it’s easy to define life’s meaning based on things that don’t really matter like money, social status, and power. When we put our faith in Jesus, he changes how we define meaning and life becomes truly purpose-driven.
Faith Changes Your Sense of Possibility
If you don’t have faith, everything is impossible. How can it be? If you don’t think you can really amount to much then your efforts will rarely lead to anything useful. When you have faith, it changes what you think is possible. It actually blows away impossibility.
Faith changes Your Motivations
When you place yourself in God instead of being motivated by yourself, fears, or limitations, you become motivated by love. You become motivated to reflect God’s goodness to him and you’re able to do things you weren’t able to do before. You are able to forgive, you are able to do things, and you are able to set aside your fears. That’s how powerful faith can be.
Conclusion
By changing how you see yourself, how you see others, and how you define possibility, faith can really change your world. If you’re tired of feeling stuck and you feel that your life is going around in circles, start taking leaps of faith today. You will be surprised to what you can achieve and how happy you can be.
