Matthew 17: 14-20
14When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. 15"Lord, have mercy on my son," he said. "He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him."
17"O unbelieving and perverse generation," Jesus replied, "how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me." 18Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed from that moment.
19Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, "Why couldn't we drive it out?"
20He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."Once upon a time, we see Jesus talking with his disciples about their "lack of faith." We're told that with the right amount of faith we can do anything, even move a mountain. When talking with a man whose son was possessed by a demon, Jesus told him to just believe. With faith we can do anything, and yet we see very little getting done. Why!?!
I like to compare faith to a receipt that you get when you pray. It's our assurance that the thing that we bought with our prayers will be coming to us. And really, with a receipt, it doesn't matter at all what size it is. The Bible talks in Galatians 6 about how we should not despise small beginnings, and that's what Jesus is saying here. If you have faith, it doesn't matter the size, because Jesus will help you with the rest.
More faith isn't better than less faith, it just means it's been exercised more. Think about it like a muscle, if you work it out (through using it) and nourish it (through prayer and Bible study) it will grow. If you don't it won't.
What will you use your faith to do today?
-Jeff-
