Let's Meditate The Words of Jesus Christ
And the Lord said, lf ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you".
Another passage in Mark 11:23 mentions not only trees but mountains: "If you say unto this mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast in the sea, it shall obey you" .
The Spiritual Meaning of Mountain-Moving Faith :
God wants His Word to work. He says in Jeremiah 1:12, "I will hasten my word to perform it" or in a better translation: "I will stand behind my word to make it work". We need to find this kind of faith that 'speaks' and things happen.
The point is this: There is 'speaking faith' available to God's children , 'a faith that saith'.
1. Mustard Seed Faith
And Jesus said, ' lf ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed.... In another translation says: 'if you had faith that grows as a grain of mustard seed... " Jesus was not telling us that all we need is a tiny bit of faith, as a tiny mustard seed, and then we can move trees and mountains.
Rather, the Lord was teaching us that faith that GROWS as a grain of mustard seed can heal the sick, cast out demons and see signs following it (Mark 16:17-20.).
We have a divine commentary on how a grain of mustard seed grows in Matthew 13:31,32. It is the Lord's own words:
In Another parable Jesus , saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field:
Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest... and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. "Now, the mustard seed is small; but Jesus said that when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs and becomes a tree big enough for lodging birds.
When we understand that it is not little faith but growing faith that does big things.
Little faith will do some things; and big faith will do bigger things, but Jesus was teaching the faith that grows was the Ideal Faith.. It is from "faith to faith" (Rom 1:17) that we progress toward ultimate, mature faith.
2. Mountain Moving Faith
In I Corinthians 13:2, Paul comments on faith that moves mountains:
"And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand and all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have ALLfaith, so that I could remove mountains..."
Paul recognized that it took 'all' or total or 'full-grown faith' to move mountains'. You don't move mountains with seed faith; you move mountains with 'all' faith. It takes fully developed faith to relocate a mountain!. Paul recognized this and Jesus taught it. In Matthew 17, we read a certain man came to Jesus who had a son who was lunatic. Paul recognized that it took 'all' or total or 'full-grown faith to move mountains'. You don't move mountains with seed faith; you move mountains with all faith. It takes fully developed faith to relocate a mountain!
This caused him to fall into the fire and into the water. The man came to Jesus and said: ' I brought him [my son] to thy disciples and they could not cure him' (Matt 17:16). They could not cure him! "And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very how.
Then came the disciples to Jesus apart and said. Why could not we cast him out?"(Matt 17:18,19).
The disciples said, in effect: "Lord, we gave that fellow the full 'Charismatic treatment': we shook him, we said In the Name of Jesus,' we did all these things, and that devil didn't come out. Why?"
The King James version says, "And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief... " (Matt 17:20). In the original Greek, that word is not 'unbelief ' but rather "little faith" or "undeveloped faith."
Jesus was not talking about unbelief (a negative force). These disciples would not have tried to cast out devils if they had been in unbelief. Unbelief is a negative thing that disbelieves, whereas the problem of these nine apostles was "little faith." They were trying, but with not enough faith, to do the job. So, then, the disciples were not unbelieving; they simply did not have sufficiently developed faith to cope with the problem. They had "seed-faith" and a "tree-sized" problem.
Jesus went on to teach them that even though their faith was undeveloped, if they would allow it to grow as a grain of mustard seed, they could eventually "say unto this mountain. Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove and nothing shall be impossible unto you" (Matt 17:20).
In other words, nothing shall be impossible to you if you have developed faith, faith that has grown and continues to grow!
Growing faith is a scriptural concept. In Paul's writings he talks to us in this metaphor: he says that we are changed "from glory to glory" and "from faith to faith" (2Cor 3:18; Rom 1:17). Faith grows in a series of steps or seasons.
By Ralph Mohoney
World MAP