Music of Life: Faith (Part 1)

Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses (1 Timothy 6:12, NASB).

And I pray that the fellowship of your faith may become effective through the knowledge of every good thing which is in you for Christ's sake (Philemon 1:6 , NASB).

One of the key elements in any great movie is suspense. I am sure that you can recall a scene or two from a movie in which the hero is faced with a situation where he must rise up and take on a challenge which is probably outside safe odds of success. In most cases, the hero must even face death itself, if he does not succeed. The danger is apparent, and the risk may seem to be too great. But would the movie really be great if the hero didn't take on the odds, outwit the risk, and take the danger out with the trash. Most of us would agree that even if the hero failed to save his own life but accomplished his task, it stilled made an awesome story. In real life, this kind of suspense only comes attached to faith. Even in the movies, the hero exercises faith in his own abilities and/or those of his team. You cannot build this element of suspense without it.

The key is understanding that the hero was predetermined to have this kind of faith in the script before the story was ever played out. He didn't just all of a sudden get this burst of faith or willingness. We are all the same in this matter. Paul states in the book of Romans, "For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith" (12:3, NASB emphasis added). Everyone has been given by God some measure of faith. There is not one person out there who can accurately say that they have no faith. They may not have much, but they do have some. The amount is directly proportional to what God has called them to do, which makes the quintessential question about what you do with your faith. The disciples were challenged by Jesus on a couple of a occasions to stand in their faith more. In the first situation, the disciples were trying to cast out a demon with no success. Jesus came up and cast it out, and the rest is as follows:

Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not drive it out?" And He said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you (Matthew 17:19-20, NASB).

The second comes at a time when Jesus was queried by his apostles in the following manner:

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" And the Lord said, "If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and be planted in the sea'; and it would obey you (Luke 17:5-6, NASB).

Jesus wasn't mad at or frustrated with the disciples when they were unable to cast out the demon. He had shown up for this specific purpose. They had not encountered this kind of demon before. And when they tried to cast it out using their previous method, as they did when Jesus had sent them out before, they did not succeed. Jesus denoted that they had failed to seek God for help when He informed them that "this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting" (Matthew 17:21, NASB). Jesus had planned this episode to help the disciples understand that they must trust God to equip them for everything He has called them to do. Jesus had been in communion with God on the Mount of Transfiguration before casting this demon out. He was the one who was supposed to cast it out, and that is why He his statement to them concerning the littleness of their faith was not condescending. There faith indeed was little, but He also wanted them to understand that their faith did not need to be the size of a mountain to accomplish the impossible. Rather, it only needed to be the size of a tiny mustard seed. These statements of the littleness of their faith and faith size of a mustard seed were intended to encourage and challenge them to grow in their faith.