Daily Devotional for June 17, 2011

Luke 17:5-6
The apostles said to the Lord, "Make our faith stronger!"

Jesus replied: If you had faith no bigger than a tiny mustard seed, you could tell this mulberry tree to pull itself up, roots and all, and to plant itself in the ocean. And it would!

Scripture taken from the Contemporary English Version © 1991,1992, 1995 by American Bible Society, Used by Permission.

When I was a little girl, someone in my church gave me a necklace that had a little mustard seed encased in glass. I didn’t understand the importance of that gift at the time… all I knew was that the mustard seed was very tiny. And honestly, I’ve read this scripture all my life and totally missed the point. Have you?

See, we are always saying, “I wish my faith were stronger,” or “I wish I had more faith.” The point is… we need faith - period! Jesus is saying in these verses that faith the size of a tiny mustard seed could uproot a tree or move a mountain… the least amount of faith could accomplish huge results. Our problem is not how much faith we have, but rather whether we truly have faith in the first place!

We all say we have faith. We all say, “I believe God will do this or that.” But do we really? Aren’t we often just giving lip service to our faith and failing to back it with the real deal? Isn’t it time we stopped merely “talking the talk” and really got in the game and walked in genuine faith? This is a daunting shift in our thinking and behavior, and it probably won’t happen overnight… but we simply must realize that our “faith problem” lies with quality, not quantity.

What have you been talking about trusting God for lately? Are you ready to stop simply talking and start truly believing? What is your “mustard seed faith” able to accomplish?

©2011 Debbie Robus

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