The disciples walked with Jesus in person. They heard His teaching. They watched His miracles. They saw Him pray. And when they came to Him with a request, they did not ask for more power, more knowledge, or more spiritual gifts. They asked for one thing:
“The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!'”
— Luke 17:5 (NIV)
If the apostles who lived alongside Jesus recognized that they needed to pray for more faith — then praying for more faith is not a sign of weakness. It is the clearest sign of spiritual clarity. You are asking the right person for the right thing.
This article gives you 10 powerful prayers drawn directly from Scripture — prayers the apostles prayed, prayers the Lord Jesus himself modeled, and prayers the Apostle Paul wrote for the churches he loved. Each one is a biblical prayer you can take up as your own. Each one is accompanied by words to pray — so that when you don’t know what to say, Scripture gives you the words.
How to Pray for More Faith: What Scripture Tells Us
Before the 10 prayers, one foundational truth: God has given each person a measure of faith to begin with (Romans 12:3). Faith does not come from nowhere — and faith does not come without the word of God. Romans 10:17 establishes the mechanism: “faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” Faith is nurtured by God’s word and by prayer together.
This means that when you pray for more faith, you are not asking God to manufacture something from nothing. You are asking the One who gave you your measure of faith to grow it — through the same word that produced it, through the same Spirit who applied it. The God who began a good work in you is faithful to carry it to completion (Philippians 1:6).
Don’t hesitate to bring this request to God. Hebrews 4:16 says: “Let us approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” A prayer for more faith is exactly the kind of need God invites you to bring. Approach God. Ask. Expect Him to respond — because He has promised to reward those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).
Prayer 1 — Pray for More Faith: “Lord, Increase My Faith”
“The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!'”
— Luke 17:5 (NIV)
This is the most direct prayer for more faith in the Bible — and it came from the apostles themselves. The context matters: Jesus had just commanded them to forgive the same person seven times in a single day. Their immediate response was not argument, not bargaining — it was the recognition that what Jesus required exceeded their current faith. So they prayed for more.
Faith begins with this kind of honesty. When you see what God is asking and feel the gap between the command and your capacity — don’t hesitate. Pray exactly what the apostles prayed. The God who heard them is the same God who hears you.
Words to pray:
“Heavenly Father, I come to you the same way your apostles did — honestly, and with empty hands. Increase my faith. I see what you are asking of me. I see the promise you have made. And I see that what I currently have is not equal to what you are calling me toward. You are the author of faith. Grow what you have given. Increase my faith so that I can follow where you lead, trust what you have promised, and obey what you have commanded. In Jesus’s name, amen.”
Prayer 2 — Help My Unbelief: The Prayer from Mark 9
“Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed: ‘I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!'”
— Mark 9:24 (NIV)
Mark 9 records one of the most honest moments in the Gospels. A father brought his demon-possessed son to the disciples, who could not help. When Jesus arrived, the father’s plea mixed faith and doubt in the same breath: “if you can do anything…” Jesus answered: “Everything is possible for one who believes.” And the father’s response became one of the greatest prayers in Scripture: “I believe; help my unbelief.”
Both things were true at the same time — genuine faith and genuine doubt, real trust and real fear, existing together in the same heart. Jesus healed the boy anyway. This is the prayer for those moments when faith is weak — when you believe but can feel the pull of doubt, when you want to fully trust but cannot quite get there. God responds to this prayer. He honored it in Mark 9, and He honors it still.
Words to pray:
“Dear Lord, I believe — I genuinely do. But I also feel the doubt. I feel the places where my faith is thin. I am not pretending those aren’t there, because you already know. Help me overcome my unbelief. Don’t wait for my faith to be perfect before you act. I bring you the faith I have — mustard seed though it may be — and I ask you to meet me here. Do what only you can do. And as you do it, let my faith grow. In Jesus’s name, amen.”
Prayer 3 — Open My Eyes: A Prayer to See God’s Promises
“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you.”
— Ephesians 1:18 (NIV)
The Apostle Paul prayed this prayer for the Ephesians — and it is a prayer for faith, because faith cannot rest on promises that the heart has never truly seen. You can read God’s word without the eyes of your heart being open. You can hear scripture without it landing as living reality. This prayer asks the Holy Spirit to do what only He can do: make God’s promises visible to the inner person.
“Open my eyes to see” is the prayer of a disciple who wants not just information about God’s promises, but actual sight — the ability to see, as clearly as anything visible, that what God has promised is real, certain, and personal. Faith will grow when the eyes of the heart are opened.
Words to pray:
“Father God, give me the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that I may know you better. Open my eyes — the eyes of my heart — so that I can see the hope to which you have called me. Let your word move from the page to my heart. Let me see your promises not as distant possibilities but as present realities. Take the things of this world that cloud my vision, and clear them away. Let me see you. Let me see what you have promised me. Open my eyes to see your faithfulness, your goodness, and the certain future you have prepared. In Jesus’s name, amen.”
Pray the Word: Declaring Scripture as Prayer
“So faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.”
— Romans 10:17 (NIV)
One of the most powerful ways to pray for more faith is to pray the word — to take specific scriptures and speak them back to God as prayer. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word. When you pray the word, you are simultaneously hearing it (as a faith-producing proclamation) and bringing it to God (as faith-expressing petition). Both things happen at once.
Jesus himself said that faith like a mustard seed can move mountains (Matthew 17:20) — even the tiniest genuine faith in God has remarkable power. And the word tells us that when you declare God’s promises, speak them aloud, and pray them with trust in the One who made them, faith will grow. This is not magic formula. It is the biblical principle that mustard seed can move mountains when it is genuine faith directed at a God who cannot lie.
Words to pray:
“Heavenly Father, your word says that whoever believes in Jesus will not perish but have everlasting life. I believe it. Your word says that you will supply every need of mine according to your riches in glory in Christ Jesus. I stand on that. Your word says that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Give me the words to pray your promises back to you every day — so that what I hear from your word becomes what I believe in my heart. Let faith come through hearing, and hearing through your word, in me. In Jesus’s name, amen.”
Prayer 5 — A Prayer to Obey: Bold Faith in Action
“Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.”
— Acts 4:29 (NIV)
When the early church faced opposition — when the Sanhedrin threatened Peter and John and commanded them to stop speaking in the name of Jesus — the disciples gathered and prayed together. They did not ask for safety. They asked for boldness — the faith to obey what God had called them to do in the face of everything that was trying to stop them.
God answered. The place where they were meeting was shaken. They were filled with the Holy Spirit. And they spoke the word of God boldly (Acts 4:31). Strong faith always moves toward obedience. The prayer that asks God for faith to obey is a prayer God loves to answer — because it aligns exactly with what He is calling His people to do.
Words to pray:
“Dear Lord, I see what you are calling me to do. I see the command. I see what obedience looks like from where I stand. And I also see what stands against it — the fear, the opposition, the cost. Enable me to obey. Give me the bold faith that does not waver when it meets resistance. Fill me with your Spirit so that the faith I carry becomes the faith I act on. Let me not just believe in my heart but obey with my life. In Jesus’s name, amen.”
Prayer 6 — Surrendered Faith: “Not My Will, But Yours”
“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”
— Luke 22:42 (NIV)
Even Jesus prayed this — even Jesus needed the posture of surrendered faith in Gethsemane. He brought His honest desire to the Father: remove this cup. And then He placed the outcome entirely in the Father’s hands: not my will, but yours be done. If the Son of God modeled this prayer, no disciple is above praying it.
Surrendered faith is the deepest kind of faith — not the faith that demands, but the faith that trusts even when it cannot see, even when the answer is no, even when the cup is not removed. Faith does not come from getting our preferred outcomes. It comes from the relationship with a God whose character we have come to trust — a God who loved us enough to send His Son, and whose wisdom is greater than our understanding.
Words to pray:
“Heavenly Father, here is my honest request: [your specific prayer]. I want this. I am bringing it to you. And I trust you completely with the answer. Not my will, but yours be done. You are good. You are wise. You see what I cannot see. My faith is in you — not in the outcome. And as I surrender this to you, please grow my faith through the trust. Let me know you better through this prayer. In Jesus’s name, amen.”
Prayer 7 — Forgiveness When Faith Has Wavered
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
— 1 John 1:9 (NIV)
Sometimes faith is weak because unconfessed sin or unresolved guilt is standing between the believer and God. Doubt, fear, and distance from God often have roots in areas where we have not brought our failure to Him honestly. Forgiveness — both receiving it and extending it — clears the ground so that faith can grow again.
James 5:16 says: “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” The righteous person is not the sinless person — it is the person who has been made righteous through faith in Christ, and who keeps coming back to God in honesty. Don’t let guilt over wavering faith keep you from praying. Bring the wavering to God. Ask for forgiveness. Receive what He has already given in Christ — and let the ground be clear for faith to take root again.
Words to pray:
“Father God, I confess that my faith has wavered. I have doubted what you promised. I have pulled back when I should have trusted. I have let fear speak louder than your word. Forgive me. I receive the forgiveness you have promised in Christ — completely and freely. Now let this clear ground become the ground where my faith grows again. I will not stay in guilt over yesterday’s doubt. I receive your mercy and I step forward. Praise God for the forgiveness that makes a new start possible. In Jesus’s name, amen.”
Prayer 8 — Meditate and Pray: Letting God’s Word Go Deep
“Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.”
— Joshua 1:8 (NIV)“Blessed is the one… whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on his law day and night.”
— Psalm 1:1–2 (NIV)
Meditation — returning repeatedly to a specific verse or promise, turning it over in the mind and heart, speaking it aloud, praying through it — is one of the God-ordained means by which faith is nurtured and grows deep roots. Faith is nurtured not by one-time exposure to God’s word but by sustained, repeated immersion in it. The Psalm of the righteous man (Psalm 1) describes faith-producing meditation as the lifestyle of the one whose faith will not waver.
Words to pray:
“Heavenly Father, teach me to meditate on your word. Give me the discipline to return to your promises daily — not just to read them quickly but to sit with them, to turn them over, to let them go from my mind to my heart. Let me spend time praying your specific promises. As I meditate on your word day and night, let faith be nurtured in me the way a tree is nurtured by a river — deeply rooted, strong, and unmoved by the storms that come. In Jesus’s name, amen.”
Prayer 9 — Rejoice in the Lord: The Prayer That Builds Faith
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”
— Philippians 4:4 (NIV)“I will extol the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.”
— Psalm 34:1 (NIV)
Rejoicing and praise are not rewards for strong faith — they are generators of it. When you praise God in difficult circumstances, you are making a declaration about His character that your feelings may not yet agree with. And that declaration is an act of faith — the choice to treat God as trustworthy before your circumstances give you visible reason to do so.
Praise God in the hard season, not just the easy one. Rejoice when faith is weak, not only when it feels strong. This is the pattern of Habakkuk 3:17–18 — “though the fig tree does not blossom… yet I will rejoice in the LORD.” Every Psalm of praise that was written from the wilderness is evidence that rejoicing in difficult circumstances strengthens faith rather than betraying it.
Words to pray:
“Father, I choose to rejoice in you — not because my circumstances are easy, but because you are good. I praise you for your faithfulness that has never failed. I praise you for the promises you have made and will keep. I praise you for the love that gave your Son. As I praise you now — even when it is hard, even when I cannot see what you are doing — let my faith grow through the act of praising you. Let rejoicing in you be the foundation of my faith today. In Jesus’s name, amen.”
Prayer 10 — A Prayer for the Righteous to Stand Firm
“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.”
— 1 Corinthians 16:13 (NIV)“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
— Hebrews 13:5 (NIV)
The final prayer in this list is the prayer of a believer who knows that faith must be defended — that the enemy will press against it, that difficult circumstances will test it, and that standing firm requires active, conscious choice. 1 Corinthians 16:13 is the Apostle Paul’s charge to the whole church: be on guard, stand firm, be courageous, be strong. All four verbs are present imperatives — ongoing, active, continuous choices.
And the ground on which the righteous stand firm is Hebrews 13:5: the God who will never leave and never forsake. This is the promise that holds through every trial. God’s presence does not withdraw when faith is tested. God’s faithfulness does not end when circumstances are dark. Stand on the promise that God loves you, that He has given us everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3), and that He will not forsake what He has begun.
Words to pray:
“Dear Lord, help me stand firm. When my faith is pressed by difficulty, by doubt, by the enemy’s accusations — let me stand on your word and not waver. I will not forsake the confidence I have in you. You have promised never to leave me and never to forsake me. I am standing on that promise right now. Strengthen me with power through your Spirit in my inner being. Let faith will grow in me — not because I am strong, but because you who are in me are greater than anything that stands against me. In Jesus’s name, amen.”
How to Build These Prayers Into Your Prayer Life
These 10 powerful prayers are patterns, not formulas. They are biblical postures the heart can inhabit — ways of coming to God that Scripture shows He honors. A few principles for weaving them into your daily prayer life:
Spend time praying, not just reading. Faith is nurtured in the place where you bring what you have heard from the word back to God in prayer. Set aside specific time to pray — not just to read, not just to study, but to speak to God from what His word has given you.
Pray the word daily. Choose one promise and pray it back to God every day for a week. Declare it. Ask God to make it real in your heart. Faith comes by hearing — and when you pray God’s word, you hear it in a way that goes deeper than silent reading.
Be honest. God loves you completely and sees you completely. Don’t hesitate to tell Him when faith is weak, when doubt is loud, when you need more faith than you currently have. The prayer “help my unbelief” is one of the most powerful prayers in Scripture because it is ruthlessly honest.
Praise God in difficult circumstances. The prayer of rejoicing in difficulty is not denial — it is a declaration of faith in God’s character that the circumstances do not yet support but that God’s word fully backs.
Approach God with confidence. Hebrews 4:16 says approach God’s throne of grace boldly. You have access to God through the Lord Jesus Christ — full, permanent, unobstructed access. Use it. Come often. Don’t let shame, distance, or spiritual busyness keep you from the God who loves you and wants to be found by those who seek Him.
Conclusion
Faith will grow in direct proportion to your engagement with the God who gives it. That engagement happens through the word — because faith comes by hearing. And it happens through prayer — because faith is nurtured in the relationship with God that prayer sustains.
The apostles prayed “Lord, increase our faith.” The desperate father prayed “help my unbelief.” Paul prayed that Christ would dwell in hearts through faith. The early church prayed for bold faith to obey. Jesus himself modeled surrendered faith in Gethsemane.
These are your models. These are your words to pray. Don’t hesitate — bring your need for more faith to the God who has promised to be a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. He has given you a measure of faith. He is faithful to grow it.
Pray. Hear the word. Pray again. And watch faith come. Amen.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you pray for more faith?
Yes — and the Bible shows us that this is exactly what the apostles did. Luke 17:5 records them praying: “Lord, increase our faith!” Paul prays for his churches to be strengthened in faith (Ephesians 3:16–17). Jude 1:20 commands believers to build themselves up in faith by praying in the Holy Spirit. Praying for more faith is biblical, normal, and answered by the God who authors and perfects faith.
What is a powerful prayer to increase faith?
The most direct is Luke 17:5: “Lord, increase my faith.” The most honest is Mark 9:24: “I believe; help my unbelief.” Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:16–19 — that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith — is the most theologically rich. All of them are powerful because they bring the believer honestly before the God who has promised to respond to those who seek Him.
How do I pray when my faith is weak?
Start with Mark 9:24 — “I believe; help my unbelief” — which does not require you to feel strong faith before you pray. Then ask God to open your eyes to see His promises (Ephesians 1:17–18). Then get into the word, because faith comes by hearing (Romans 10:17), and the word is where the Holy Spirit produces faith, even in a heart that currently feels it has little. Even the tiniest genuine faith — faith the size of a mustard seed — is enough to begin.
How does praising God build faith?
Praise is an act of faith — it treats God as trustworthy before your circumstances confirm it. When you rejoice in the Lord in difficult circumstances, you are declaring His character as true over your present experience. That declaration is what faith is: the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). Psalm 34:1 — “I will extol the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips” — was written in a crisis. The praise that rises from a hard place is the praise that strengthens faith most.
What is the connection between prayer and faith?
Prayer and faith are inseparable in the New Testament. Faith is what makes prayer more than a wish — it is the trust in God’s character and promises that brings genuine petition before a God who genuinely responds. And prayer, in turn, deepens faith by keeping the believer in active relationship with the God who is the object of faith. James 5:15 says the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. Mark 11:24 says whatever you ask in prayer, believe you have received it, and it will be yours.
Does faith grow through prayer and the word together?
Yes. Romans 10:17 establishes that faith comes from hearing the word of Christ — this is the primary means. But prayer amplifies it: when you pray the word back to God, you hear it as both proclamation and petition simultaneously. Jude 1:20 says to build yourself up in faith by praying in the Holy Spirit. The word gives faith its content; prayer gives faith its relationship. Together they are the two oars that move the believer forward — into stronger faith, deeper trust, and a prayer life that grows more fruitful every day.
Related articles:
– Biblical Faith: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Acquire It
– Why Is Faith Important? 10 Reasons the Bible Says Faith Changes Everything
– Faith Comes by Hearing: What Romans 10:17 Really Means
– Faith vs. Doubt: What the Bible Says About Overcoming Unbelief
