Feb. 13, 2007

Feb. 13, 2007
Mustard Seed Faith

Mat 17:20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

Luk 17:6 And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.

My daughter loves these verses and the third one that Jesus says about what the Kingdom of Heaven is like and comparing it to a mustard seed. We will look at the others tomorrow, but for now, lets look at what Jesus says in these.

In Luke's account, they were asking to have their faith increased. Jesus gave them a similar answer to Matthew's, substituting a large tree for a mountain. In Matthew's verse, the disciples had just come to Jesus and asked why they could not heal a particular person, Jesus responds by saying that it is because of their unbelief. Unbelief is not translated really well here. We would translate it as a littleness of faith. They did not have the faith to do what they needed to. The thing about faith is that it is like muscles in the body. We all have the same amount of faith just like we all have the same amounts of muscle and bones. Jesus was not talking about having a small amount of faith here, he was saying that if we had the smallest amount of faith, that if developed properly we could literally move mountains. I can have a small amount of faith, just like I can cut out a small piece of muscle from my body. That small amount of faith, not even the whole amount that I have, is enough to move things if and when it gets properly developed.

To put it another way, a baby has a muscle in its body that should help it to stand up. Until that muscle is developed, it cannot stand. Is there any difference in the amount of muscle it has before or after it first stands up? Nope, the amount is the same. The difference is that the muscle has been developed and that gives the baby strength to stand up. Latter it will strengthen them even more and allow the child to walk, again with no ascertainable difference in the amount of muscle.


So why does someone seem to have more faith than others. Well, if you go to a gym to workout, why does it appear that someone has more muscle than you do. They have taken the time to workout and develop their muscle. We must learn to do the same. You do not go in the gym and expect to lift 200 pound weights. You start small and work your way up to larger ones. In the same way, faith must be built upon. The person who expects to believe for a healing for cancer had better learn to believe to be healed of a headache first. The one who wants to be able to pay the rent, had better start with asking in faith for a candy bar.

What faith muscle do you want to develop today. Start small and work your way up.