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How much faith is required? Jesus speaks of "ye of little faith" several times:
Matthew 6:30
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of littlefaith?
Matthew 8:26
And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of littlefaith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.
Matthew 16:8
Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of littlefaith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread?
Luke 12:28
If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of littlefaith?
It's like Jesus was saying "here, you got no faith but I'm going to show you or tell you anyway"........so who here is going to claim they have more faith than those who were actually in Jesus' presence???
My faith is less than this:
Luke 17:6
And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustardseed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.
If someone with only the faith of a mustard seed should be able to talk to trees and tell them what to do and they do it, how much more should we be able to move mountains with our great claims of faith? Oh how I long for the faith that some of my relatives and acquaintances have/had, the kind of faith that really can accomplish anything. How do we obtain this kind of faith?
How much faith is required? Jesus speaks of "ye of little faith" several times:
Matthew 6:30
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of littlefaith?
Matthew 8:26
And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of littlefaith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.
Matthew 16:8
Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of littlefaith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread?
Luke 12:28
If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of littlefaith?
It's like Jesus was saying "here, you got no faith but I'm going to show you or tell you anyway"........so who here is going to claim they have more faith than those who were actually in Jesus' presence???
My faith is less than this:
Luke 17:6
And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustardseed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.
If someone with only the faith of a mustard seed should be able to talk to trees and tell them what to do and they do it, how much more should we be able to move mountains with our great claims of faith? Oh how I long for the faith that some of my relatives and acquaintances have/had, the kind of faith that really can accomplish anything. How do we obtain this kind of faith?
Hey Ilene, don't worry about you not having as much faith as other people. Do you see them talking to a tree and having the tree jump out of the ground? I guess they don't even have as much faith as mustard seed.
Hey Ilene, don't worry about you not having as much faith as other people. Do you see them talking to a tree and having the tree jump out of the ground? I guess they don't even have as much faith as mustard seed.
Yeah exactly! That was my whole point and you got it.....if all these hypocrites around here claiming they're so righteous and faithful who constantly claim perfection and they are without sin....well then, where's all the miraculous healings and mountain moving?
At least some of us are honest enough to admit to being sinners and having the faith of something less than a mustard seed.
This reminds me of something that I copied awhile back. And it actually hit me in a very personal way. When I was dealing with some deaths in my family (my grandmother being one of them) I had a very, very difficult time. It was probably the darkest 2 years of my life. Anyway, one of the things that I was given after her death was an old (very old) mustard seed bracelet. My grandmother was not religious at all. AT ALL. I think perhaps back in the time she had it, it was kind of a fad thing maybe I'm not sure. Anyway, so I wore this mustard seed bracelet. And all the while I was dealing with this horrible grief. I mean it was some major compounded grief.
Anyway...back to the mustard seed stuff. I had found this one thing online and it really spoke to my heart. And really just energized me and helped to strengthen me.
Here it is, (an excerpt) the link is below:
Quote:
Luke 17:5-6: The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
The reference to mustard seed one of the smallest seeds is to show how insignificant is the amount of faith needed.
Though Jesus denied that size of faith does not matter, he emphasised that the quality of faith does count. This is what we hear from Jesus own mouth in Matt. 21:21 where he again speaks of faith moving mountains.
Jesus answered them, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done.
In this passage Jesus expands the earlier statement to clarify that what is needed faith of a particular quality. That quality is faith without doubt. What Jesus says here is that what does miracles is not a truck load of faith, but just faith the size of mustard seed which is pure. What all of us then need is faith without the bubbles of doubt.
As I empty a can of coke into a glass it bubbles and fills the cup and runs over. I stop then in a minute or two lift the glass to find to my disappointment that the glass is not even half full1 It was all bubbles! Many times we have such faith, fizzy faith, looks full but it is all bubbles of doubt. Million units of fizzy faith can not move even a ant hill forget mountains.
Two incidents in Jesus' ministry illustrate this point:
That was in July '09 that I found that. And I tell you, it really did help me. Amongst other things that were helping me, that picture of the bubbles of doubt, etc. stuck in my mind. After awhile, I felt that some of the doubts and things that I had been having that were giving me some torments were finally lifting, finally starting to dissipate. Doubts and not having much faith in some very specific personal stuff re: God, etc. Then a funny little thing happened that put a smile on my face. Months later in December... I had a night where I had written in my journal about this stuff (about the doubts dissipating, etc.) and about just trying to focus on love. The next day, I noticed something was wrong with my bracelet. I thought the seed was gone, and I almost panicked a tiny bit..(I mean, come on man.. my grandma had this thing for what..like 50 or 60 years! Now I have it, and I lose the dang mustard seed??! ) but it wasn't gone, the little thing sprouted! My mustard seed sprouted. How bizarre is that?! All there was, was the empty seed shell and this little sprout-ey looking thing floating around in there. I assume that I must have gotten moisture in there somehow... but STILL! It brought a pretty big smile to my face and it helped in my healing...
Well... just thought I'd share, for what it's worth.
peace,
sparrow
As a fellow sinner with less faith than a mustards seed we miss the point of Jesus. It is not our will to move mountains but it is our ability to walk in step with Christ which many of us do not and that is where the sin comes in.
Faith in God's love for all... is an area of faith where I had all bubbles of doubt before... but I can say that my faith in His love is pretty darn strong now. I will tell you about one HUGE mountain that was moved.
And that was a mountain of FEAR.
That mountain of fear has since been chucked into the ocean.
I have absolute faith in His love for us.
ALL of us.
EACH of us.
So yeah, I get it.
I understand why God wants us to have that pure faith in HIM (not in ourselves) but in HIM. What is faith? Trust. He wants us to TRUST Him.
Now, if I was back years ago when I didn't believe that all were saved, then my faith in Him would be full of bubbles of doubt. How could it NOT be? If He was going to annihilate or torment forever some of these human beings I see all around me everyday, how could I have FAITH/TRUST in Him??! How could I TRUST HIM???? A being who would DO that?!!!
I could NOT! and I don't see how anyone could. I really don't.
He is the one that put this in my heart, I believe it. He is the one that put this TRUST and FAITH in my heart.
And I will never forsake it.
It moved that mountain (several mountains, anger/hatred too!) of fear.
It sure did.
Faith/TRUST in HIM CAN move mountains.
There are a LOT of nasty mountains out there that need to be moved.
This reminds me of something that I copied awhile back. And it actually hit me in a very personal way. When I was dealing with some deaths in my family (my grandmother being one of them) I had a very, very difficult time. It was probably the darkest 2 years of my life. Anyway, one of the things that I was given after her death was an old (very old) mustard seed bracelet. My grandmother was not religious at all. AT ALL. I think perhaps back in the time she had it, it was kind of a fad thing maybe I'm not sure. Anyway, so I wore this mustard seed bracelet. And all the while I was dealing with this horrible grief. I mean it was some major compounded grief.
Anyway...back to the mustard seed stuff. I had found this one thing online and it really spoke to my heart. And really just energized me and helped to strengthen me.
That was in July '09 that I found that. And I tell you, it really did help me. Amongst other things that were helping me, that picture of the bubbles of doubt, etc. stuck in my mind. After awhile, I felt that some of the doubts and things that I had been having that were giving me some torments were finally lifting, finally starting to dissipate. Doubts and not having much faith in some very specific personal stuff re: God, etc. Then a funny little thing happened that put a smile on my face. Months later in December... I had a night where I had written in my journal about this stuff (about the doubts dissipating, etc.) and about just trying to focus on love. The next day, I noticed something was wrong with my bracelet. I thought the seed was gone, and I almost panicked a tiny bit..(I mean, come on man.. my grandma had this thing for what..like 50 or 60 years! Now I have it, and I lose the dang mustard seed??! ) but it wasn't gone, the little thing sprouted! My mustard seed sprouted. How bizarre is that?! All there was, was the empty seed shell and this little sprout-ey looking thing floating around in there. I assume that I must have gotten moisture in there somehow... but STILL! It brought a pretty big smile to my face and it helped in my healing...
Well... just thought I'd share, for what it's worth.
peace,
sparrow
Thank you so much for sharing this Sparrow....the fact that the mustard seed sprouted after soooo many years is just awesome!! It's weird about faith, either you have it or you don't.....but if you have it, it comes in different "degrees" and sometimes it just doesn't mature past the mustard seed. Some days my faith is strong and other days it wanes and flounders around like a fish out of water but there are some things that I KNOW to be true, like you mentioned......God's love for us all. It took me so many years to know that and now that I do it's like nothing anyone or anything could do can shake that part of my faith.
Faith is so multi-layered, to use Brian's analogy from another thread, faith is like an onion where we have to constantly peel away another layer to learn something new and be shown how to use that information. I'm such a babe in Christ and sometimes I feel like I always will be but then something will happen, like your little mustard seed sprouting, that let's me know that I'm progressing and growing every day.
Interesting thread, Ilene..
Jesus indeed appears to be upbraiding his disciples for having little faith, but later he tells us that even the tiniest amount of faith is all that is necessary! So he apparently wasn't upbraiding his disciples, only indicating that the "tree" hadn't started growing yet.
The other thing I was thinking while reading this thread, was that a mustard seed must be buried in order to produce the tree. And we all know that a seed that is planted is not recognizable to anyone..
So indeed, we are not supposed to judge ANYbody, since they might have a seed planted already!
And faith is also a gift; so while some people have been given the gift, others are still waiting to receive it!
I think the point Jesus was getting across was that at THAT time in the infancy of the loving, merciful God being revealed to us through the miracles Christ was doing was like "Show and tell" you about our real loving,forgiving Father. Before that time most people followed all the rules out of fear.
Faith for many comes from seeing and hearing first. Christ was still here in the flesh. On the Day of Pentecost He gave us the greatest gift of Himself within us to continue to show and tell us in order for our faith to grow through our spiritual eyes and ears.
When we have enough faith to know that He dwells within us then we realize there is nothing to fear.
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) but it wasn't gone, the little thing sprouted! My mustard seed sprouted. How bizarre is that?! 
All there was, was the empty seed shell and this little sprout-ey looking thing floating around in there. I assume that I must have gotten moisture in there somehow... but STILL! It brought a pretty big smile to my face and it helped in my healing...
