God is not the one who increases our faith. We are.
I know this because Jesus constantly rebuked His disciples for having little faith, which means that it was up to them to grow in faith.
“But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.” (Matthew 8:26)
“And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31)
“But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, “O you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves because you have brought no bread?” (Matthew 16:8)
It would be unjust for Jesus to rebuke His disciples for having little faith if the Father could just give them more of it whenever He wanted to.
If God could just give us faith whenever He wants to why did Jesus teach on faith? Why did He rebuke His disciples for not having enough faith? Why would Jesus teach and demonstrate so extensively on faith if He could just give it to us whenever He wanted to? The answer is He wouldn’t. That would be unjust and a waste of breath.
Now don’t misunderstand what I am saying. God is all-powerful and He can do whatever He wants to do. However, God has limited Himself to our free will. The moment God gave us the will to choose between right and wrong, He limited Himself.
God has spoken hundreds of times throughout the Bible that He has given us a choice between life and death. If God were to violate His Word all of creation will crumble because everything is held up by the power and integrity of His Word.
Because of this, God will not violate our free will. He has desired to give us a choice to follow after goodness or after evil.
In the same way, faith is a choice. We can choose to have faith or doubt. In fact, everything we do in our day-to-day life brings us closer to one of these decisions.
For example, your daily activity of watching television for two hours will produce doubt in your life more so than if you read the Word of God for two hours (Romans 10:17). (I’m not trying to beat you up for watching TV, but I think we can all agree that the Word of God produces faith more so than a TV screen).
Jesus’ response to the disciples is another reason why it’s clear that God is not the one who increases our faith.
“And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” So the Lord said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” (Luke 17:5-6)
Three times Jesus said “you” in this passage. Never did He say, “Guys, I’m so glad you asked me to increase your faith…here you go” or “I’ll pray the Father and He’ll give it to you.”
No! He said you have to develop your faith like a mustard seed develops into a large tree and then you’ll be able to work mighty miracles.
He’s trying to encourage them!
Jesus is essentially saying, “Guys, I know your faith is small now, but if your faith becomes like a mustard seed it will grow to become great and you’ll be able to do mighty things for the Kingdom of God”
You see, you can have small faith and yet not have a mustard seed of faith.
Small faith says, “I have such little faith. I’ll never be able to do mighty things for God’s Kingdom.”
But a mustard seed of faith says, “I may have small faith now but it is my destiny and my inheritance to have my faith so large that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches” (Matthew 13:31-32).
I have an entire article on a mustard seed of faith where I go into way more detail and explain this much more thoroughly, you can check it out by clicking on the title: What a Mustard Seed of Faith Means (How to Have it).
Should we ask God to increase our faith?
We should not ask God to increase our faith. God has already told us how to increase our faith by speaking to us through His Word. We do not receive more faith through asking Him, we receive more faith through planting the seed of God’s word and allowing it to grow.
God has already revealed to us how we receive faith from Him.
“Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17).
Notice this verse does not tell how faith grows or increases, it just tells us how faith comes. In other words, this verse is revealing to us how we receive faith from God.
So, to grow and increase our faith we have to first receive the Word of God into our hearts through understanding it, and then be careful to not allow anything in this world to get in the way of the Word. We do this through walking in the Spirit.
This was only a summary of how we are to grow/increase our faith but I have two in-depth articles that explain this process in much greater detail; How to Grow in Faith and What a Mustard Seed of Faith Means (And How to Have it).
Why did the Disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith?
The disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith because His statement about forgiving others was difficult for them to accept.
Many don’t know this but the context of the disciples asking Jesus to increase their faith was immediately after Jesus taught about having forgiveness for others.
“Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.” (Luke 17:3-4)
Immediately after this Peter asks Jesus a question about how often He should forgive His brother if He sins against Him.
“Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” (Matthew 18:21-22)
Now even though this question is recorded in Matthew and Jesus’s first statement is recorded in Luke, it is still the same instance it’s just recorded in different places because the writers each decided to mention one thing over another.
But notice, the context was if a brother/sister repents we shall forgive him/her. Also, note that this is within the time period of one day.
So Peter thought, “I have to forgive someone 7 times in a day. Is that the max, Lord?” And Jesus responded with an astronomical number to show him that he needs to forgive every single time that someone asks for forgiveness.
Within this context then the disciples say to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”
The disciples recognized that this kind of forgiveness is not natural, but that it requires supernatural ability so they said to the Lord, “increase our faith”.
We need faith for everything in the Christian life, for all of it is miraculous.
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