Matthew 17: 19 NIV
Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and
asked, "Why couldn't we drive it out?"
Are You Being Held Back From Something?
When our family was much younger, Noah was four or
five and Jacob seven or eight and Rachel was a newborn, we went camping up into
the Sierra Mountains to a National Park that is our favorite as a family. At the western edge of the park down around two
thousand feet, the Marble branch of the Kaweah River weaves through the Buckeye
Flats campground. We felt just as
adventurous as Lewis and Clark as we stumbled upon a magnificent pool of water
formed in a crevice of the mountain that ran along the north of the river. There was a natural water slide created by a
groove in three giant boulders over which the rushing river flowed down into
the pool of water below. The pool itself
was thirty to forty feet deep and although icy cold was refreshing in the hot
summer sun. Holding Noah, I rode down
the water spilling off the giant boulders that served as a water slide and
together we plummeted into the water, coming out laughing and shivering from
the cold of the chilly water. Jacob took
the slide down too and for a while it was both a bit scary and exhilarating for
him. But then as we played around in the
water, a father and son that had come before us climbed the rock cliff on the
other side of the river and came to an outcropping and stood there staring down
at the water below. They were about
fifty feet above the river and to our astonishment, first the father and then
the twelve year old boy jumped out into the clear mountain air and plunged down
to the pool below. We gaped at one
another in amazement at the daring of the two.
To accomplish this safely, they had to leap out from the cliff so they
wouldn’t land on the shallow rock directly below the narrow ledge. When the two came out of the water, we
expressed our amazement at what they had done.
But both the boy and dad acted like it wasn’t that big of a deal; the
water where they landed was deep and actually the jump was quite safe. We had a hard time believing them but Jacob kept
looking up at the outcropping and then down at the water, clearly trying to
decide if he was going to take the leap too.
The question for him was how much faith he had in the pair who had taken
the plunge, that it really was safe for him.
After several minutes pondering whether or not to believe he could jump
off the cliff without killing himself and following an extended period of questioning
Mary Jo and me if we thought he could survive the jump, Jacob decided what he
would do. The question of jumping or not
was answered by the faith or lack of faith he had in what we thought and what
the father and son said to him.
Faith is at the core of many decisions we make. It determines whether or not we will apply to
a certain college. It powers the move to
pursue a better job or start homeschooling.
Faith is what leads us to choose a career we really want rather than the
one everyone else thinks we should select.
Faith is what decides whether or not we ask that particular girl out, or
if we should “pop the question”. Faith
is at the center of the decision to finally start writing that book or begin a
conversation about God with a co-worker.
Faith is the determining factor in tithing as well as the decision to
take a tough class or build a friendship with a grumpy co-worker no one
likes. Faith attempts the impossible,
tackles the challenge accepts responsibility.
Faith has reshaped kingdoms, toppled dictatorships and led to research
that has changed the course of civilizations.
It is faith or the lack of faith that has decided whether or not couples
stay together and determined if a failing student would go one more term to
college. Faith is at the center of many of the most important decisions we
make.
One of best examples of how faith operates is found
in the Bible. In Numbers 13 and 14 is
the famous account of the twelve spies who were sent out by the people of
Israel to explore the land that the nation was about to invade. None of the Hebrew leaders had ever been to
the land of Canaan and for that matter nobody among the more than a million
Israelites hoping to move into Canaan had ever been there either. Not many of us would relocate to a city or a
country sight unseen. The twelve spies
were given the task of finding out exactly what sort of land Canaan was, how
fertile the soil and the sort of defenses the people of the land had
built. Moses commissioned the spies and
off they went.
The report they gave upon arrival back to the Hebrew
camp was split. Ten of the spies
reported the land to be fertile but the inhabitants giants and the towns where
they lived mountain fortresses. The
infamous “grasshoppers’ line came from these spies too.
We
saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We
seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them." (Numbers 13:33 NIV) This group of
spies downplayed the quality of the land and emphasized the impossibility of
conquering the people who lived in Canaan.
The other two spies gave a contradictory report. They talked glowingly of the fertile soil and
the succulence of the fruit grown there.
The cities they said were easily conquerable and the people of Canaan
unprepared for a fight. Now how can two
groups of people who went to the exact same places together have such differing
takes on what they saw? It is simply
this. Faith defines understanding, not
knowledge.
The spies who said it would be impossible to conquer
Canaan and disparaged the suitability of it as a new homeland had one sort of
faith and that faith determined what they saw.
The spies who reported the land preeminently lovely and the inhabitants easy
to conquer had another kind of faith and in that faith each group possessed,
came differing outlooks. This is not an
isolated case but illustrates how everyone thinks. The sort of faith you have decides for you
much about what you see and how you interpret what you experience.
In Matthew 17: 19, the disciples were frustrated by
the lack of success they had casting out a demon. Jesus’ response was pointed. "Because you have so little faith. I
tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say
to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be
impossible for you." (Matthew 17:2 NIV) What we see in many arenas of life is
confirmed by Jesus. There are certain
things we don’t do because of too little faith and there are other things we
can’t do because of the lack of faith.
The disciples were unable to heal a boy with a demon because of the
obvious shortage of faith they had.
Jesus though asserted that they could easily have cast out the demon if
they had even a small amount of faith.
It did not require even great faith to do something so astounding as
free a crazed child of an afflicting demon.
Now here is the difference between generalized faith
that is popularly promoted in self-help articles, TV shows and infomercials, or
as it should really be defined, “self-confidence”, and what the Bible means by
faith. Jesus never told the disciples or
anyone else that they needed to believe in themselves. In fact, we are reminded again and again at
various points in Scripture to not trust ourselves. What we are to do however in regard to faith
is trust God. Jesus makes this crystal
clear in John 14: 1. Trust in God; trust also in me. (NIV) Without getting terribly technical, the word
translated “trust” is the same Greek word as is translated “believe” or “have
faith” in other parts of the Bible. We
are told here to have faith constantly, always in God; at every moment have
faith in Jesus. Let’s get just a bit
more technical. The Lord tells us to
keep believing “into” Him, always getting deeper with our faith into God. Nothing should diminish our faith in Christ,
no circumstance or trouble is to get in the way of burgeoning faith in God.
The justification for this demand of God is really
quite amazing. In my Father's house are
many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to
prepare a place for you. And if I go and
prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you
also may be where I am. (John 14:2-3 NIV)
Before we can express the justification for our building faith in God, a
correction to the translation of this passage needs to be respectfully
noted. The word “there” as in “I am
going there” is not found in the Greek text. It more accurately reads, “I am going to
prepare a place for you.” The
implication of the NIV is that Jesus was going to the place of many rooms to
prepare a place for us but that was not what Jesus was saying. Jesus was going to the Cross to prepare a
place for us. The cross was what His very next step was. He was not about to go up to heaven. He had a much more earthy task before Him; to
die for our sins. It was at the Cross
that Jesus Christ gave faith its power, its crushing strength. Jesus demanded our faith in Him because by
dying on the Cross, He put us in our place.
We are in this work of God given the very power of the Lord in all we
do. What Jesus did at the Cross was
enable us to be joined to Him that His knowledge of what we can and cannot do
is ours, His assessment of what we are capable of accomplishing is what we can
see through what He sees.
Because our sin separated us from God and kept us
from His mind, the Cross broke apart that terrible barrier. The Holy Spirit became free to enter us fully
and make us the very body of God once our sins were removed. This was not possible before the Cross. The prophet Isaiah expresses precisely what
every person faced before the Cross. But your iniquities have separated you
from your God… (Isaiah 59:2 NIV) We could not have faith before Jesus died
for us because faith had no object; no place where it could land. Once we were free of the broken state of our
life with God when Jesus died for our sins, we had God in whom we could have
total faith. This is not some mental
gymnastics where we fool ourselves into thinking we are something we are not;
this is the change that comes over us when we put all our hope in Jesus Christ
to save us. Our salvation is a totality
salvation, a salvation to heaven but more importantly a salvation to God. We are saved from our sins in order that we
might be joined to Christ and that His works, His miracles, His accomplishments
could take place through us. Salvation
comes to us that we might be put together to Christ and then we can do what He
does. Impossibility has only two
explanations when we are combined with Christ and we acquire His mind. We are either attempting something God
doesn’t want done and we have rebelled against Him or we have failed to wait
upon Him to act through us. We have done
something impulsively, without God’s authorization to move forward.
Faith is not based on what you can do or who you are
but rather faith is solely a total dependence upon Jesus Christ to work through
you and in you. As He shows you, He also
empowers you. As He pushes you, He also
enables you. Faith is the assumption
that we do not act independently but in union with God at every point. That is possible only because Jesus Christ
died for your sins. You are joined to
Christ and so you act now according to what He guides you and when He does,
every time you can do it. This is not
mystical gibberish but how it is when you are made alive in Christ. You can do whatever God gives you to do at
the time He tells you to do it.
Take time this week to pray fervently. Take each moment it comes to you and join
your mind to that of Christ. Pray as you
walk and pray as you drive and pray as you work and even as you talk with
people. Pray at the restaurant, during
the movie, when you are online and while you are eating. Pray to Christ that He might pray with you
and join His mind to yours. As you do
this, the work of God will begin to happen through you and miraculous works
will happen. Faith is not in your
abilities but in Christ who lives in you.
Once you begin to put this into practice, praying through the mind of
Christ, you will begin to see perfectly how God will work through you.