"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Rom 10:17) Your faith is the mindset you have acquired as a result of receiving God's word and allowing it to overtake your mind. There is no other source for faith except the word of God. Faith is based on the word of God. God does not give you faith; He gives you His word which you can believe to produce faith. To have faith is to believe in the word of God. That is why Jesus did not answer the prayer of His disciples to "increase their faith". It is not God's job to increase your faith. All you need to grow your faith is the word of God. The closer you are to the word of God, the higher you rise in faith. In all its occurences in the Bible, the word "faith" is derived from the Greek word "pistis" which means "persuasion" or better put "to be persuaded". In other words, faith is a state of mind reached when one has been completely and fully persuaded to accept the trueness of God's word. Faith is the substance of things hoped for because faith says "The God who did that, can also do this". Faith is not gamble; it is not blind naivety; it is not risk-taking. It is action based on complete trust. The second part of that scripture says that it the evidence of thing not seen. Faith is an evidence. It is based on proof. faith is the total conviction that one has about the capability of God - His awesomeness, His sovereignty, His omniscience, etc. If you have proven God at one point in your life that is an evidence upon which you can base your faith. Faith is saying the God who enabled David to kill Goliath can enable me pay my house rent. The more of the word of God you have in you, the bigger your faith becomes. The more of the experiences you have of God, the stronger your faith becomes..
Now is the time to launch out in faith, in belief, in total reliance on God and His word. Now is the time to live in the faith dimension!