Faith for the Impossible

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

FAITH FOR THE IMPOSSIBLE

Matt 17:14-20

14 When 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. 16 I 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."  18 Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed from that moment. 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, "Why couldn't we drive it out?" 20 He 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." 

NIV

What disciples could not drive out this demon? It does not appear these mentioned disciples were any of the twelve for they were always traveling with Jesus. There were other followers of Jesus who could be called disciples and we would have to believe these are the ones who did not have authority over evil spirits. When Jesus sent his twelve out, as we saw back in chapter ten, He gave them authority to heal the sick, raise the dead, and drive out demons, so they could have and would have driven the demon from this man’s son. Nevertheless, Jesus makes the point about faith. Before we consider faith, we should also think about what Jesus meant about this unbelieving and perverse generation and how long shall he stay with them. Was he speaking about those disciples, or the Jews in general because they did not see him as the Messiah? It would seem he meant those disciples who followed him, but still were not understanding who is really was, but just saw him as a great teacher, who had the power of God to do miracles. Could this also apply to us today? Can we say we are Christians or believers or followers of Jesus and not have the faith needed to do that which we could? Jesus said it only takes the faith of a mustard seed, and that is not much faith at all, for a mustard seed is supposed to be the smallest of all seeds yet can grow to be the largest plant in the garden. So then are we just giving God lip service when we say we believe? Or is our belief just for our salvation, or maybe we should better say our hope is in Jesus for our salvation? Hope may not be the same as faith. Hope is simply an expectation and when we refer to our hope in Christ, it would be a confident expectation, but still, that is not having faith to say to a mountain to move from here to there and see it move. Hope does not produce the impossible, but faith can according to Jesus. We say we have faith, but do we have faith? Maybe we are not supposed to have that kind of faith, as Jesus only meant it for his disciples, and that was then, and it does not apply to us now. That cannot be right, as then we would have to say all of the scripture was for then and not for now, and thus even salvation is not available to us now. So then if all scripture is applicable for all mankind in all times of history, then having faith that overcomes the world, that can move mountains is available to us. We want that faith, Lord give us this faith to believe all things are possible.