When We Feel Our Faith Is Weak (1)

My faith is weak!
(1) The office of faith is to knit us to Christ, and the weakest faith will do that, as well as the strongest. Faith is to bring us to Christ; and then to look to him for all perfections and for your title to heaven, and not to faith. True faith is faith even in the least degree of it. The arguments will not hold, if we have not much faith, we have no faith; or if we have no feeling, we have no faith.
(2) But this is not sufficient to satisfy the soul. The very cleaving to Christ is indeed a sufficient ground of comfort, yet to obtain actual comfort, there must be a knowledge that we do cleave to Christ and believe. It must appear to ourselves that we do believe before we can have comfort, though we may be true Christians, and go to heaven without it. Therefore, let us labour ‘to make our calling and election sure’ (2 Pet. 1:10), that is, in ourselves, and in our own apprehension. You see the advice of the apostle, 'Give all diligence.' It is not got without diligence, nor without all diligence, to make our calling and election sure. To that end 'add grace to grace' (2 Pet. 1:5). It is the growing Christian that is the assured Christian.
(3) And when we have attained any evidence of true faith, labour to keep that evidence clear. Let it not be spotted or defiled by any sinful acts. Some have much good evidence that are so blurred with negligence, and daily errors, that when they reflect upon themselves, they conclude, ‘Can such a wretch as I, that have no more watchfulness over my heart, have any faith at all?' Though they may be in a good state for the main, yet they will not know it; and all because they are not careful to keep their evidence, which we should preserve clear and bright. That it might be seen and read upon all occasions, and may witness with us, and that the Spirit and the word may join their witness with our consciences.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Sibbes's Last Two Sermons: Second Sermon, Works, vol. 7, pp. 352-53
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