Day Five
Before we start today I just want to review what we have learned so far.
- Faith is God’s chosen currency to access the resource of His Kingdom
- Without faith it is impossible to be accepted by God.
- Our faith can be ‘little’ or ‘great’, which implies that it, can grow, but it can also shrink.
- Faith is like a seed, it has WITHIN IT the potential to grow
- When we place the little we have in God’s hands rather than hide it, ashamed that it is so small, this pleases God and gives Him the opportunity to show off on our behalf.
We are focusing these 40 days on intentionally growing our faith.
We spent some time yesterday talking about the reward of faith, and meditating on the passage that comes directly after Jesus talks about the need to forgive those who have hurt us, not once, but over and over again. In response, the disciples ask Jesus to INCREASE their faith.
Luke 17:5-10
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
6 He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.
7 “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? 8 Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? 9 Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ ”
His first response is one of the most quoted verses about faith in the Bible “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you” Imagine the feelings of hope this would have ignited in the listeners, who were struggling with the knowledge that their faith needed to increase in order to forgive. Jesus is painting a picture of hope about what their faith, surrendered to Him, can achieve, and the great reward it can bring.
Jesus then launches into a parable that seems to have no contextual link to the statement before it. It however speaks to the process and the perspective that this reward is to be received by.
I want to unpack this a little today. We are so used to measuring our effort and determining our own deserved reward based on that effort. We think no differently when it comes to faith. If I’m honest, the reason I get so disappointed when I feel like my prayer hasn’t been answered the way I was hoping it would, is because I feel like I deserve the reward of my labor in prayer or service to God. Jesus is simply reminding us that at the end of the day, He owns our lives, and that in all things we are to serve Him first even in our own need. The servants in the field had needs, they were hungry and tired too, but the master needed feeding first. This sounds a little harsh to us but God is simply saying that there is provision for us, it’s already there, and if we put first the Kingdom of God and serving Him our needs WILL be met. This demonstrates our faith in him as our master, it’s not about labor and reward it, it needs to be about TRUST and DEVOTION.
Scripture to meditate on: Matthew chapter 6