Yesterday I talked about how little our faith needed to be to be mountain moving. I want to encourage you today a little further in that idea.
You are familiar with Jesus saying to his disciples, “If you have faith as a mustard seed you can say to the mountain be removed and thrown into the see” Matthew 17:20
Jesus made that statement after the disciples could not deliver the young man from the demon. In fact they had been trying while Jesus was with God the Father, Elijah, and Moses on the mount of transfiguration. Jesus said to them, “you of little faith”. If you look at each time He mentioned that to them you will see a pattern of what Jesus was saying.
How often do we know that God can do something and we set about doing it in our strength rather than God’s? The disciples knew the boy could be set free from the demon; their faith was in the fact that the boy could be set free; they knew it. However their faith was in relying on their own strength rather than the Lord. Notice they recognized that God could do it, so they had faith but it was not in the power of God, but in their own ability, their own work, rather than that of the Lord.
The same thing happened when the storm came and Jesus was sending the disciples with him to the other side of the lake (Matthew 8). The storm came, they knew they could get across the lake if they just worked hard enough at it so they did what came naturally for fisherman, they gripped, worried, complained, and rowed harder. Once again Jesus said they had little faith. Their faith was in knowing that God could do something but their focus was on the idea that they had to make it happen rather than relying on the Lord to lead them and show them what to do.
Romans 12 tells us that each of us are given a measure of faith. Faith is indeed like a muscle the more we use it the stronger it becomes. However our faith must not be in a works mentality but a grace one. We do not have any abilities within ourselves that God has not given to us. Our dependency must not be on what we know God can do but on God.
I know it may seem like I am a broken record on this but it is always about relationship. The stronger our relationships with the Lord, the more we recognize Him in every aspect of our lives; the more we recognize how much He loves us, His leading, and daily guiding of our lives. The less we rely on our strength and the more we turn to Him first.
Be blessed today rely on Him, even in your strengths. Watch what he will do as we use our faith to trust Him rather than in ourselves. All it takes to move mountains is a little faith in God’s ability rather than a lot of faith in our ability.
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