Faith

"And He said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you."
     -Matthew 17:20 (NASV)

     That is such a powerful verse. Jesus tells us that even if our faith is very small, we can MOVE A MOUNTAIN! How cool would it be to walk up to a mountain and say "mountain, move to this other place" and have it move?
 
     Now, as cool as moving a mountain would be, it is not the only thing that God can and will do if we have faith in Him. The Bible gives us lots of examples of what can happen when somebody has faith. One example, is found in Matthew 8:1-3:

     "When Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him. And a leper came to Him and bowed down before Him, and said  "Lord, if you are willing, You can make me clean" Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him saying "I am willing; be cleansed." And immediately his leprosy was cleansed"

     This man is a great example of what faith looks like. He had faith that Jesus had the ability to heal him, so he was not afraid to ask.

     A second example of a miracle that occurred because somebody had faith is found in Matthew 9: 20-22:

     "And a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years, came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak; for she was saying to herself "If I only touch his garment, I will get well." But Jesus turning and seeing her said, "Daughter, take courage; your faith has made you well."

     Much like the man in the first story, this woman had faith that Jesus had the power to make her well. So she reached out and touched his cloak, and the power that was within Him healed her.

     A third example (my favorite of the 3) is a little bit different than the other 2. It is found in Luke 5: 17-25:

     "One day He was teaching and there were some Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem; and the power of the Lord was present for Him to perform healing. And some men were carrying on a bed a man who was paralyzed; and they were trying to bring him in and set him down in front of Him. But not finding any way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down through the tiles with his stretcher, into the middle of the crowd, in front of Jesus. seeing their faith, He said, "Friend, your sins are forgiven you" The scribes and Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone? But Jesus, aware of their reasonings, answered and said to them, "Why are you reasoning in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven you' or to say 'Get up and walk'? But, so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins."-He said to the paralytic-"I say to you, get up, and pick up your stretcher, and go home." Immediately he got up before them, and picked up what he had been lying on, and went home glorifying God.; and they were all filled with fear, saying, "We have seen remarkable things today."

     What I find most interesting about this passage is the phrase "their faith". This part of the passage, in my mind, is not referring to the paralytic, but to his friends. His friends had enough faith that Jesus could heal their friend, that they were willing to do whatever it took to get him to Jesus. Through the faith of friends, the paralytic was healed.

     So what can we learn from these three passages? Well....the short answer is that if we have faith, God can (and will) do amazing things! Not just for us (like in the first two examples) but through us (like in the third example). The amazing thing is, it doesn't even take very much faith for these things to happen! Like it says in the verse at the beginning, it only takes faith the size of a mustard seed (which for those of you who don't know, is very very small). So the question is, how big is your faith?