Have Faith

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

HAVE 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

This is the same teaching that Mark records, although it is slightly different. However, the point is that if we have faith, it does not have to be giant faith or overwhelming faith, but simply faith without doubt. This begs the question; do we believe Jesus? He said that if we have the smallest amount of faith, but as long as we have faith without doubts in our heart, we can tell a tree or as Mark uses, a mountain to go throw itself in the sea and it will obey us. If we believe what we say, it will happen. This does lead to that old, “Name it and claim” false theology, which was prevalent in some denominations during the ‘70’s’ and maybe still exists in a few churches, at least from our personal experience. Still, the fact remains that Jesus did teach that if we have the smallest amount of faith, we can do things beyond the natural. This also makes us wonder if we have gone too much the other way and do not express our faith to overcome situations in life, but rather look to our abilities, talents, education, and wealth. Have we left our faith to live under the rules of this world? What is the purpose of our professing we are Christians if we are simply going to try to accomplish everything in our efforts. Why do we claim to have faith in God and faith in Jesus if it is just for the life after this life? Jesus did say that we were to have faith in God and in him for he was going to prepare a place for us as there are many residences in his father's house. However, Jesus also said that we are to express, or exercise our faith, no matter how small it is, as long as we do that without any doubt, we can accomplish things beyond our abilities, talents, education, or wealth. It seems some would put limits on what we can do, putting conditions on who can do what based on human qualifications, rather than allowing faith in action. Let us move forward in faith doing what God has for us, leaving doubts behind, as we live by faith, simply believing God. Faith will always insist a transformation in our lives will happen.