Increase Our Faith

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Scripture: Luke 17:3-6 (ESV)

3 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, 4and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

Devotion:

            Today’s scripture is a real challenge to us in the 21st century church in America. In our culture we typically do not depend on our faith. We are a people of action, of do it yourself. It is hard for us to lean on our faith and depend on that to carry out our goals. Faith seems to us to be an old-fashioned idea. In our minds we know that we are to have faith, but in our actions, we often look to “just do it” rather than have faith in God to do things his way.

            The original apostles had a similar problem. In this chapter of Luke, the apostles are given many instructions such as the ones we find in verses 3 and 4. Things that they did not think they had enough faith to carry out on their own. Jesus reminds them that they do have enough faith to do great works. After all, don’t they have even the smallest amount of faith. Like the mustard seed of the proverbs. All they need to do is exercise the faith that they do have, and they can truly do miraculous things. What they do need is an awareness of their own potential for faith.

            How can we as modern believers access the power of our faith so that we may do the works Christ commands us to do? Our main hope of releasing the power of faith within us is to seek the Holy Spirit’s filling. As the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 faith without love profits you nothing. So, in addition to being filled with the Holy Spirit we must also urgently ask that we be filled with love. We must be filled with the true agape love that can only come from God in order to that our faith may bear good fruit.

            We all have a tiny spark of faith within us. We must rely on God to strengthen and mature our faith so that it can help the kingdom. We must be careful that we always exercise our faith whenever we can. For those of us who are “do it yourselfers” we need to learn to rest in God’s love and trust in His timing. Let us pray that God might increase our faith.

Prayer:

            Lord God Almighty hear our prayer today. We are weak Christians because we do not have your Holy Spirit’s power filling us with His power. Fill us with your Spirit. Release the faith you have given us that we may do your will in the world. Help us to grow in love so that our faith may increase its impact on the world. In the blessed name of Jesus, we ask this. Amen

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