Encouragement & Faith
As we start Lesson 8, remember to first start each day or each lesson with the Our Father. Pray that prayer every day, as a way to direct and protect your day. As I want to help you develop in this area, while we still have them, I am offering my 1st Edition of 30 DAYS PRAYING THE OUR FATHER, to be sent to you for free, to anyone requesting it. It will help you accelerate your understanding and regularly pray this great short prayer.
In this week’s lesson, we are going to look at the concept of faith. The Gospels have hundreds of illustrations about how to have faith. Both the Old and New Testaments are filled with lessons and examples of faith. So why is there such a vacuum of teaching about this subject? Let’s look at Jesus’ criticisms concerning His own disciples’ level of faith.
Matthew 17:20,
“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.”
Luke 8:23-25,
“But as they were sailing along, He fell asleep; and a fierce gale of wind descended on the lake, and they began to be swamped and to be in danger.
They came to Jesus and woke Him up, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And He got up and rebuked the wind and the surging waves, and they stopped, and it became calm.
And He said to them, “Where is your faith?”
They were fearful and amazed, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him?”
We can see that on one hand, Jesus’ disciples were shocked and amazed at His teachings. The Jews had the best lessons concerning faith from their forefathers in the Scriptures. Yet, despite the Jews having the oracles of God, these disciples had no idea what Jesus was talking about, when He spoke about “faith”.
On the other hand, many Jewish followers of Jesus, did understand the concept of faith.
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.’
At once the woman was made well.”
Matthew 9:27-30,
“As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David!’”
“When He entered the house, the blind men came up to Him, and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord.”
“Then He touched their eyes, saying, “It shall be done to you according to your faith”. And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them: “See that no one knows about this!”
Matthew 15:25-28,
“But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, “Lord, help me!”
And He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
But she said, “Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”
“Then Jesus said to her, “O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.”
And her daughter was healed at once.”
Apparently, there are those kinds of people, that few people know and are not mighty, but they understand how faith operates. And then there are those in leadership roles in the body of Christ, who cannot explain faith at all. We should all know what Jesus wants us to know, concerning faith.
We can see that faith heals bodies, faith stops the storms, faith casts out devils, and faith opens eyes. Because faith is at the top of Jesus’ list of teachings, we should desire to learn more about faith.
Our prayer for today,
Father, teach me how to walk in this powerful thing called faith, in Jesus’ name, amen!
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