Effective Faith

Luke 17:5-6 - The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 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.

There is no way to overstate the importance and challenge of faith. In Greek, the noun faith and the verb believe have the same root. Over and over Jesus tells us faith is the key to receiving eternal life (think of John 3:16 – “…whoever believes in him has eternal life) and answered prayer. A lack of faith and difficulty believing seems to keep many people who would become Christians from doing so. If Jesus were to ask me what I want most of all, I would be just like his disciples in Luke 17:5 – “Give me more faith, please!”

With a request like that in verse 5, verse 6 should be one of the most important verses in the New Testament. Jesus should have told us the secret formula, the seven steps to increased faith. However, to the disciples’ disappointment (and mine), Jesus did not do that. He did not tell them how to increase their faith. He did not touch them on the foreheads and shout, “BAM!” Instead, he described a seemingly impossible feat that came from one with a mustard seed of faith.

Why did Jesus not answer their question? He was pointing out that they were asking the wrong question. The grain of mustard seed was tiny. The size of the disciples’ faith was not the issue. What determined their faith’s effectiveness was what they did with it. Faith is not limited by size. Whatever faith you have, use it. Trust, believe, pray, follow, speak, act, and see what God will do through you.