The Finisher Of Our Faith

"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12:2) Exercising faith can be hard. It can take not only all that we have, but also require more than our all. We can try to climb the mountain in front of us with all the will in the world, and at the base of the mountain it may seem that we're brimming with faith, but after hours and hours of climbing, all of our faith seems to have been used up and we're not even close to the top. But Jesus Christ is the finisher of our faith. He takes over when all our faith has been used up. When Peter stepped onto the surface of the sea of Galilee, before a handful of steps his faith got used up, but then Christ was there to take him in his arms and together they walked to the boat on the water, finishing Peter's act of faith. When the Apostles tried unsuccessfully to cast the devil out of the boy stricken with palsy, and the father of the child said Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief, Jesus finished the faith not just of the father who struggled with his unbelief, but also of the Apostles who had exercised their faith to try to cast out the devil. Jesus Christ is the author and the finisher of our faith. He had a hand in designing the trials of our faith, and he designed them in a way that would require His divine intervention. We're not supposed to take these tests alone. As the author of our faith, He wrote Himself into our tests of faith, and it is neither an inconvenience nor an imposition for Him to be there to help us finish what we started, but actually the whole point of the test in the first place.