Believing Faith

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

BELIEVING FAITH

Luke 17:5-6

5 The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" 6 He replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you.

NIV

It might be possible this response of the apostles is connected to what Jesus just said about forgiving seven times seventy every offense against them, which they thought would be very difficult, if not impossible, unless they had more faith. But it is also possible, as Luke did not record everything in perfect chronological order, this request for more faith was about something else. Matthew records that asked why they could not drive out certain demons which Jesus responses about the faith of a mustard seed. In either case Jesus is making the point about faith. How much faith do we need? Evidently not much in order to do much. Mark also records Jesus talking about having faith without doubt and we can move mountains. It does not require a lot of faith, just unwavering faith, asking and believing that what we ask for will happen. Now we do need to also know that we cannot ask with wrong motives, that we need to be asking in the will of God. But Jesus does not said that, he just says have faith, do not doubt, act on that faith, we can forgive as God forgives or we can do great move trees and mountains simply by commanding them to move. It is far easier to believe or have faith we can forgive then to uproot a tree and plant it in the sea. Yet with all the other teaching of Jesus about causing a tree to wither, or cast a mountain into the sea, or cast out a demon, or anything alone the lines of being a shaker and mover for God, we simply have to use whatever amount of faith we have. We cannot say, we do not have enough faith, for God says he gives every man a measure of faith. Well actually it is in the teaching about not thinking more highly of ourselves then we should but rather think of ourselves with sober judgment in accordance with the measure of faith God has given us. The point is still the same, God has given us a measure of faith. Whatever that measure is, it is enough, perhaps even more that a grain of mustard seed. With the measure of faith God has given us we should be able to do whatever Jesus says we can. He said we can ask anything in his name and he will do it. It does, however require faith without doubt. That is the clincher, without doubt. All too often we have that little grain of doubt. We think he can, but will he? There is that doubt and that kills the faith. Instead of having the simple faith of a child, we fall prey to being religious, depending on our behavior or our knowledge of scripture, or some other form of spirituality thinking that defines us as a believer. We do not need any more faith than the measure God has given us, we only need to believe without doubting. Faith is the opposite of doubt. Faith believes, doubt does not believe. One cancels the other, we have to make sure it is faith that cancels doubt, instead of doubt canceling faith. It is like not being able to serve two master, God and money. We cannot serve faith and doubt, we will either love one or hate the other, and we will be devoted to one and despise the other. We have to serve faith, no matter how much or how little we have. We need to live by faith, not making excuses why God doesn’t do this or that. We have to live by faith period, no excuses, no doubt.