Enough Faith?

“You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.” Matthew 17:20

I know what you’re thinking, but just for a moment, before we make a judgment about our own lack of faith or the lack of faith in our generation, let’s consider who this was written to and why Jesus might have spoken in this manner.

Jesus had many followers, but there were twelve hand-picked disciples whom Jesus called. To these twelve he gave authority to cast out evil spirits and to heal every kind of disease and illness (Matthew 10:1). These are the ones Jesus is speaking to.

A man had brought his son to the disciples to be healed. The son suffered from seizures caused by a demon. He would often fall into the fire or the water, but the disciples were not able to cast the demon out. When Jesus found out about it, he cast the demon out himself and rebuked the disciples for their lack of faith.

The disciples had been given authority, but they lacked faith. If I give you the keys to my car, you have the authority to drive it, but if you really don’t believe you can drive my car, you’re probably not going to get very far.

The disciples had seen Jesus heal the lame, blind, and crippled. They were there when Lazarus came out of the grave. I think they believed Jesus could heal the boy. But Jesus wasn’t there. He was up on the mountain with Peter, James, and John. They had to move from passive observers to the ones in the driver’s seat. And that required faith—faith in the fact that God would do through them what they had been given the authority to do.

I think today we either lack faith in the fact that God will do through us what we have been given the authority to do, or we are trying to do things that God has not given us the authority to do. And I think it’s important to know the difference.