Romans 12:3 Gifts of Grace
“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”
This verse mentions that God has assigned different levels of faith to people.
My first question is why? My second question is, does this mean God likes one person more than another? Why wouldn’t God give His children the same amount of faith? But then again, why doesn’t God give each person the same amount of ability? In a world of comparison, this feeds right into jealousy, resentment, and performance. Was that God’s intent?
From the very beginning, by God creating a man and a woman, we see that He created unique individuals with different bodies, abilities, and purposes. Therefore, Paul found it necessary to put this verse down in writing. We are to have sober thoughts of who we are individually and when we look at one another. Sober, meaning clear thoughts, without judgment, jealousy or resentment. As humans, we have this need to feel either superior or inferior towards others. It’s very difficult to look at another person and not subconsciously size them up.
We then find ourselves associating a level of favor as to why one person appears to have more or less of ability, attractiveness, wisdom, power, position etc. We can’t accept who we are as God made us. God doesn’t see it that way. For He loves each person the exact same. He sees no differences when it comes to His love for us. If He did, then Jesus’ death would have had qualifiers attached to it, such as He died for the poor and not the rich, the weak and not the strong, the powerful and not the servants. He knew that we would have this tendency so His way of leveling the playing field is saying, God so loved the world and that means everyone. The qualifier He did use was belief. Yet, by using belief as the differentiator, He understood that no matter how we looked, the position we held, the wealth we accumulated, or physical or mental abilities we have, we all have the same ability to believe.
Faith is faith, so why different measures? It makes sense that God would allocate various measures of faith that would match up to our various abilities. Yet, note that large amounts of faith can be seen in the meekest, the humble, and the impoverished. The story of the woman with two mites comes to mind.
We also see where God says to those in high position – oh you of little faith!
Faith is a matter of the heart. Furthermore, a measure means that our faith can increase as well as we learn more to trust God. It is fluid. It would make no sense to give an infant a whole steak to eat the same as an adult. Yet, both have the same capability to eat, yet each have a different ability to digest it.
God knows the right amount of faith we each need, yet, He has no limitations on how much we can have. God loves seeing our faith grow and is ready to pour out more along the way. May we not compare but rather encourage one another to develop our faith in God.
#JustAThought
