Luke 17:5 (NKJV) 5 And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”
This year God has been speaking to me of the tremendous potential he has invested in every believer. We are to live as supernatural people in the natural world. That means we have access to the supernatural as we live life here on earth. Part of that is the revealed knowledge we have been studying for most of this summer. Another important aspect of our supernatural potential is the Bible reality of faith in God.
When I was in my early 20’s I was exposed to a teaching that deeply impacted me. This teaching was focused in two primary areas. The first was the absolute truth of the written Word of God. I found that what the Bible said was the highest truth in the universe. It supersedes what I feel. It supersedes the reality of the natural world. If something that was true in the natural disagreed with what God said in his word, I could apply the Word of God to that situation and eventually it would conform to it. That can be applied to any area of human life. The key to remember is that it is the Word of God that will conform the natural to itself. We must come to an understanding of what the Word really says, not what we think it says or what tradition tells us it should say.
What would enable the born-again human to apply the truth of the Word of God to a natural situation? The connection is made by faith. In Mark 11:22-24, Jesus made a statement that points to this very clearly.
Mark 11:22-24 (NKJV) 22 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. 23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. 24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.
There are many times in the Gospels when Jesus points to the necessity of the faith of the person involved in order to see results. In this verse, Jesus, is responding to the astonishment of his disciples that a fig tree has withered and died just as Jesus said it would the day before. His answer to how this is possible is to “have faith in God.” Other translations read the faith of God, or the kind of faith God has. Here Jesus uses the term believe which is faith that is active in a person. If we have faith than we can believe that something will happen. In this case we can believe that whatever we say will come to pass up to and including the moving of a physical mountain.
Some might say that this is something Jesus can do but not all Christians. That is not possible because he says to them, “I say to you, whoever says to this mountain.” He is telling them what is possible for them. Some would say he is not talking about things we might face in the natural, but he is talking about spiritual mountains. That cannot be true either because he says, “You can say to this mountain be removed.” He must be pointing to a mountain of some height. He is talking about a real dirt and rock mountain.
In teaching along these lines, I like to ask, “Was Jesus lying?” Of course, the answer is no. Jesus never lied. Then I like to ask, “Has anyone here moved a real dirt and rock mountain?” The answer is also no. Why not? Because none of us have ever needed that to happen. Why then use such an extreme statement? I believe Jesus wants us to know the extent of what is possible if we have faith in God. Anything we face in life including the removal of a literal mountain is possible. If anyone but Jesus said it, I am not sure I would believe it!
In Matthew 9:29, 15:28, Mark 2:5, and 5:34 we see just a few examples of times when Jesus said specifically that is was the faith of the individual to whom he ministered that caused healing in their life. I believe we can say without doubt that Jesus taught that our faith is important if we are going to see God move miraculously in our lives.
In today’s scripture we find Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness. He tells the disciples that they must forgive a person not seven times but 70 times 7 times for an offense committed against them. The implication is that if a person commits the same offense against us 490 times in a day, we must forgive them. No wonder they felt they needed more faith!
In answer to their question, he says two important things. One is that faith as small as a mustard seed is enough to get the job done. In this case they did not need more faith. He tells them that what they must do is put the faith that they have to work. They must use it. I believe in the case of this level of forgiveness, they must simply do it by faith. That means they forgive without any need to feel anything or to have some kind of retribution for the offense. When we forgive by faith, we tap into the supernatural power of God that will cleanse our own hearts and work on the offender to heal him as well.
That said, their question requires that we ask, “Can faith be increased.” I believe it can. Paul says some things that indicate this to be true.
2 Corinthians 10:15 (NKJV) 15 not boasting of things beyond measure, that is, in other men’s labors, but having hope, that as your faith is increased, we shall be greatly enlarged by you in our sphere,
Here we find that Paul expects the faith of the Corinthians to be increased. In Thessalonians 3:5 he writes to find out if the tempter had been able to hinder their faith causing Paul’s labor to be in vain. In one case we see that faith can and must increase. In the other we find that faith can diminish and become ineffective. We can and must grow in our faith.
I have heard teaching that implies faith is passive in that it is simply trusting in God. This is very true. Trusting in God is the essence of faith. However, sometimes this kind of teaching implies that we do not have to believe anything in particular. We just trust in God and whatever happens, happens. If we remain faithful to God, he will take care of us. We should not and cannot believe that God will do specific things. I find this at odds with Mark 11:22-24,and all the scriptures that I cited where Jesus tells individuals that their faith has made them well or whole. If you read their stories they were not people who were being faithful, but people who were coming to ask for something of Jesus.
Another scripture that I believe shows us that we have something to do with what happens in our lives is 2 Corinthians 1:20.
2 Corinthians 1:20 (NKJV) 20 For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.
Why would we need promises if we were not supposed to believe them. No, it is clear that God gives us promises so that we can actively believe them and by doing so see changes right here in the natural world. We can increase our faith in those promises if we are not seeing them fulfilled. Since God calls them promises he intends for us to partake of what they promise. What do they promise? Anything we may need to live in victory and blessing in the world. How they come to pass in each of our lives may be very different, but God intends them to come to pass and for that to happen we must believe them. To believe them we must have faith in them.
Why, if God is sovereign, is it necessary for us to actively believe the Word of God? Is God not capable of taking care of us if we do not believe? Of course he is! However, there are things in effect in this age that require us to be involved with God in what he is doing in the earth. That is what we will look at in the next few weeks.
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