And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and, kneeling before him, said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.” And Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.” And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:14-20 ESV)
Have you ever felt useless? Like you couldn’t do anything right?
Have you studied something under the guidance of a master for several years and still unable to do what seems to be a simple task for the master?
You see this boy was held by a demon and it should be something easy for the disciples to remove from him, but they are unable to get the demon to leave. Why?
Well if we read the rest of the text Jesus seems to say that their faith is not big enough. If you had the faith the size of a mustard seed you would be able to tell this mountain to move from here to there and it would obey. The mustard seed being the smallest of all seeds during Jesus’ day… So their faith is smaller than the smallest seed, and they are unable to do the simple tasks… Yet the above translation has a foot note after verse 20, because the reading for the day is Matthew 17:14-21, that some manuscripts add the verse “But this kind never comes out except by prayer and fasting” So maybe the disciples were not praying or fasting…
So what does this say about our abilities to do ministry? Are we useless because we do not pray or fast? Or if we do pray and fats, do we do it for the right reasons? Or maybe our faith is just too small…
I do not agree our faith is too small. It is a gift, faith, so how can what we have been given too small? We have the faith that was given to us and is nurtured in us… We have the faith that God used to draw us to Him, as He feeds and nurtures that.
I mean if we take the text for today to heart, we all should be able to say to the mountains to move and they should move. But I don’t know about you, but I have never made a mountain move. So maybe the faith we have is enough…
The faith we have is enough for us to do what God needs for us to do. So you are not useless… None of us are useless. God will use you to do His mission if you will allow Him to.
aSacredRebel 