Faith

Scripture reading: Matthew 17:20

Religious words are often spoken, but I wonder if the meaning and enormity of those words are truly understood. Words are spoken so frequently as if everyone already knows what they mean, yet there are, I am sure, some who are new to the Christian faith who may not understand them. These words include faith, grace and other such words that are the foundation of the Christian faith, but we have a tendency to let them become insignificant, perhaps due in part to not fully understanding their meaning or appreciating the enormity behind them.

This article takes a look at faith. Faith as used in Matthew 17:20 refers to a belief or conviction of the truth of the Lord and our relationship with Him and predominantly leaning toward our trust in the Lord as the object of our faith. Faith involves trust and begins with belief.

Let’s consider an example from everyday life. When our family gathers for dinner, we sit in chairs arranged around our dining room table. As we sit down in the chairs, not one member of our family hesitates to sit or asks if the chairs will hold their weight. One of the reasons, probably the most obvious reason, is that we sit in these chairs everyday. A less obvious reason is the purpose for which the chairs were designed. The wood was shaped and assembled into pieces of furniture which were intended to hold the weight of an adult. It is not as if there are spindles and seats in a pile on the floor by the table. The chairs are built for sitting and are made especially for that purpose.

We place our trust in something or someone we perceive to be worthy of our trust for a particular purpose. Although I sometimes stand on a chair to reach something in the kitchen, I do not do this on a regular basis because I know the chair is not designed for that purpose. I do not trust the chair to hold the concentrated weight of my body when standing.

We would like to think that our faith is developed by experience, and to some degree it is. However, this is not entirely correct. We purchased our dining room chairs without sitting in them and without any experience with the chairs. This is because we knew the chairs were designed for the purpose we intended to use them – sitting. Therefore, it was complete faith in purchasing the chairs that they would do what we believed they would based solely on the information we gathered.

When we think of faith in the Christian context, our minds are probably drawn to bulwarks of the faith. While it is important that we learn from such people, our focus should be on the Scripture lesson and what we may be able to accomplish through faith.

The irony of Jesus’ words here is that the mustard seed is one of the smallest in the world, and He rebuked the people for having little faith. We should not get tripped up over His rebuke and think that we must have a large amount of faith to find favor with Him. Jesus specifically said nothing will be impossible to us if we have faith the size of a mustard seed.

In other words, it is not necessary that we develop a lot of faith to tap into the Lord’s resources to work in our situation. If we first had to have an enormously deep faith to have the Lord’s resources at our disposal, the focal point would be our own accomplishments and not His strength and compassion.

How can we measure faith anyway? It is not as if we can measure it in grams or inches. Are there degrees of faith? Do some people have more faith than others?

The only measure we have of our faith is our belief in the Lord. Hebrews chapter 11 is commonly known as the faith chapter because it records acts of faith among people such as Abraham, Jacob and Moses. The Old Testament of the Bible is chocked full of accounts of faith from people such as Joshua, Gideon and Elijah.

How much faith did they have? They had enough faith to do what the Lord told them and wait on Him to work.

Believing in the Lord is no different. Most of the people who will read this article have some experience with the Lord. You will recall the first experience you had, probably in salvation. Our first experience with the Lord is that of belief, which is leap of faith. However, before coming to the decision of believing by faith, you had a reason to believe, and you were justified to put your faith in the Lord.

Our faith in the Lord is helped by hearing and seeing others who believe, reading the Bible, and entertaining the notion that there is a God and that He is worth knowing. It begins by obtaining enough information to formulate a belief and to trust that He is worthy of our faith in Him.

Our faith emerges and grows by accepting the words of the Lord as true and applicable to our lives and continues growing as we allow the Lord to control our lives.