by Joe Beam
a handful of people had faith equal to a grain of mustard seed? Think about it. Mountains jumping into the sea? Demons fleeing? Mulberry trees being uprooted and planted again, untouched by human hands, just because a person told it to? (See Matthew 17 and Luke 17) Figures of speech, you say? Jesus didn�t really mean those things would happen, you explain? Then God has news for you: It�s just that kind of thinking that has kept amazing things from happening. The problem with immovable mountains isn�t the lack of power available, it�s looking in the wrong places. We depend so much on our own abilities�our intelligence, our money, our church�that we have no need to call down the extraordinary power of God. That dependency on self is also why we have no choice but to deny that Jesus meant what He said in those passages that tell what unblemished faith will accomplish. We don�t tell a mountain to throw itself into the sea because we know that those things just can�t happen (Matthew 17:20). If we need a mountain moved, we form a committee, plan for years, raise the money, buy the earth moving equipment, and then struggle to move one small protrusion before the brethren get tired, bored, or just plain lose interest. Move a mountain? We can�t even level a hill before we give up and change projects. Because our experiences belie the statements of Jesus, we have no choice but to relegate them to the world of the metaphor. Surely He couldn�t have meant it for real! Those things do not happen! And, by our own faithlessness, we ensure the truth of our beliefs. Those things don�t happen. But the fact that they don�t happen isn�t because Jesus didn�t promise them. He did. Oh, how He did. And their lack of occurrence doesn�t in any way validate our faulty theology. Just the opposite. It proves the very thing that Jesus taught. When faith exists in a pure form it takes very little to turn the world we know upside down. When it exists not at all or in very flawed form, mountains sit stagnate and trees grow unbothered (Matthew 21:21). Why do those things require faith? Isn�t God able to do what He wishes whether we have faith or not? After all, how many humans with great faith did He need to speak everything into creation? No, our faith doesn�t give God power. Neither is our faith a power unto itself. Faith isn�t the generator in the dam making the power; it�s the transmission line through which the power gets to where it needs to go. The smaller the line, the less the power. The larger the line, the greater the power. Quite simply God won�t bring His power into the lives and dreams of those who won�t believe what He does when He does it. He won�t work His miracles to have us thank our lucky stars or praise the universal false god called "coincidence." Just as Jesus wouldn�t work miracles in His home town because of their lack of faith, He won�t work wonders for us when our faith lacks just like theirs. Want to see the impossible? Then forget about hitching your wagon to a star, dragging yourself up by your own bootstraps, or sucking it up to make it through the game. Forget about you and what you can do because as long as you lean on yourself you�ll never command mountains or trees or demons to do your bidding. But when you immerse yourself into and completely trust in His power, you will see things the world is convinced cannot happen. Ready to use the unused power? Surrender in faith. |
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