The More You Have Faith, The More You Increase Your Righteousness

Please note the following scriptures:

Mathew 17

14 When they came to the crowd, a man came up to Jesus, falling on his knees before Him and saying,
15 "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a lunatic and is very ill; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.
16 "I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him."
17 And Jesus answered and said, "You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to Me."
18 And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured at once.
19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not drive it out?"
20 And He said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.
21 ["But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting."]

James 5

16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

The first scripture indicates that the way someone is able to do powerful things via faith, is by praying and fasting for the ability to do so. (Please note that praying and fasting essentially means doing a lot of highly focused praying.) Further, a person praying for something (while believing he will receive it – which is required in order for someone to receive what he prays for [James 1:5-8]) is what defines ‘having faith’ (Mark 11:22-24). Therefore having faith a lot to obtain the power to do powerful things, is what gives a person the power to do powerful things.

The second scripture indicates that a righteous man is able to do powerful things via faith. It follows therefore that having faith a lot over obtaining great power, actually makes someone become very righteous.

As a practical matter, the more a person has faith in general, the more righteous that person becomes. However when someone seeks after God’s greatest gifts (e.g. great power, intelligence, foresight) his righteousness increases all the more, because it is to the most righteous, God gives his greatest gifts.

Praising God Is Not the Same As Having Faith

It is important to realize that having faith is specifically the act of someone: saying what he wants and believing that it will happen, or asking God for what he wants, and believing he will receive it (Mark 11:22-24). Praising God, and the other things people do while praying, is not the same as having faith. As a consequence, the more things a person does other than 'saying and believing' or 'asking and believing' while praying, the less effective that person's prayers will be. Further, because a person's righteousness increases with the amount of faith he has, the less time a person spends actually 'saying and believing' or 'asking and believing' while praying, the less righteous that person will become. Praising God does not cause a person's prayers to become more effective, or a person to become more righteous, rather, praising God bears witness to the fact that a person has significant faith. That is what the following scriptures mean:

Psalm 40

3 He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD.

(NKJV)

John 15

7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.

All of the above have a very important implication: if you spend a significant portion of your praying, praising God, instead of having faith, you run the risk of performing the work of (righteousness of) praising God, instead of having faith a lot, which is what produces all the godly qualities seen in you. Even worse than this: praising God directly at the cost of having faith a lot, can cause you to sink into - or even below - the threshold level of having faith, required for your relationship with God to be sound. (This means you could actually slide away from salvation because of it.) Therefore when you pray, please ensure you do a whole lot of 'saying and believing' or 'asking and believing'. If you have a strong inclination to praise God, then do so by all means. However, do not let anything cut into the valuable time you have allotted to having faith. Praising God directly is not having faith, and does not save you. Rather, praising God bears witness of your salvation, which is made possible by your having faith to begin with (Ephesians 2:8-9).

 

One other thing, John 15:7-8 indicates the main way a person glorifies / praises God. When a person has faith, his behavior becomes godly, and this more than anything is what glorifies God. It is the same with any man who has a good son and a bad son. It is the son who conducts himself according to the wishes of his father, who really glorifies his father: not the son who verbally says nice things to his father, but acts against his wishes.