Just a few thoughts I wanted to tack on to the end of my Easter series, Resurrected!
What’s Your Faith In?
You’ve all heard Jesus’ saying about having the faith of a mustard seed:
I tell you the truth, 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
What does that actually mean, and what does it have to do with the Resurrection?
Faith, you see, depends not on how much of it you can muster up. As Eugene Peterson says, “You don’t need more faith. There is no ‘more’ or ‘less’ in faith.”
Faith is not a matter of degree or quantity; it is a question of object.
It doesn’t matter how much faith you have in something if it’s not real or not capable of saving you. As my good friend and spiritual mentor Tim Timmons says, you can have all the faith on earth that a quarter-inch of ice will support your weight should you decide to go ice-skating on a frozen pond in Ohio. But your amount of faith means absolutely nothing, because the simple fact is that a quarter-inch of ice is not enough to hold you up. If you decide to act on that faith, you’re going to get very wet, maybe even very dead!
On the other hand, you can have only the smallest, tiniest, barest smidgen of faith that four feet of ice will hold you up on the same lake. You may skate out into the middle in fear and trembling, sure that at any second you will crash through to the water below and freeze to death. And yet you will be safe. Your faith has been well-placed in a trustworthy object—no matter how little of it you have.
This is what Jesus means. You may have faith only as small as a mustard seed, a seed so tiny that it is almost invisible to the naked eye. Yet if you place that faith in Jesus, anything will be possible, for the object of your faith is Something and Someone real. Someone powerful. Someone who created the universe and has the power to save you.
So Sit Down Already!
There’s another aspect to faith, however, that can keep you from experiencing its power, even if you have placed it in the right object.
Imagine a chair. It’s a good chair, you think to yourself. Sturdy. Well-constructed. Whoever made this chair knew what they were doing. Yes sir, it could definitely hold your weight.
“So sit down then,” someone says.
“Ahhh no thanks, that’s okay,” you reply, “I know it can hold me up, but I’m cool just standing here and admiring it. I’ll eat dinner standing up, thank you.”
How foolish is that? Faith is the same way. You may possess the faith, and your faith may be in something solid, but if you don’t lean on it, then you’ll never experience the benefits of it! And you’ll be left standing at the dinner table while everyone else sits and enjoys their meal.
So sit down!
–Jeremy
Truth poorly defended loses not its truthfulness;
Falsehood aptly defended loses not it’s falsity.