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Monday, February 18, 2019

Why Faith?


Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
Matthew 17:20

Up to this point in Matthew, Jesus has admonished the disciples for their lack of faith several times.  He has been surprised by people's faith, and he has been surprised by people's lack of faith.  But what is faith? Is it measurable? Why does God put so much value on it?

It's no accident that Jesus uses a mustard seed as a metaphor for faith.  A seed, no matter the size, contains all the nutrients and DNA it needs to become a tree.  It is activated by sunlight, warmth and moisture.  With that activation the seed exerts the energy it needs to break open, push above the soil and sprout.  But without the exertion from within, there can be no tree.  In the same way, His presence and love are the activation.  And the faith that we exert within us is a deliberate act of demonstrating trust in, even pulling on the Father. The two forces act together in a miraculous transformation, and fruit is born in and through us.  Without faith, then, there is simply no fruit.

It's a foundational principal of the way things have been designed in the fabric of the Kingdom.  As fundamental as gravity, our faith is integral to overcoming the soil of this presence reality.  Ever since the first mortal disobedience, we have heaped upon ourselves countless lies.  And these lives have propagated perversion, internal wounding and disease.  But now the Kingdom of the Son has dawned on the world.  Our faith must breach through this darkness to manifest His life-giving power on a desert of death.

is Faith, then, the undoing of all these lies
spun through ages by time’s tragic toil
and our own vain deception?

be then, my vision, to breach that wicked wall
and lay waste, stone by stone
with each strike of that fell hammer!

His blood is precious and all too powerful
to let it flow to forgotten trenches
lean on this mighty river
and let the truth in!

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