(Luke 17:20-21)
The Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God would be coming. They knew it was coming for the prophecies of the Old Testament indicated as much. They were expecting the Messiah to come and bring with him the Kingdom of God. They were also expecting to be rulers in this kingdom. Little did they know that the time had come and they missed it.
(Luke 17:11-19)
The parable of the ten lepers shows us several things. It speaks of faith, healing and gratitude. It also shows us that you cannot always know who it is that will most likely be the one that comes to the Lord. And in his lesson we need to recognise that all good things are from the Lord and we should give him thanks.
(Luke 17:7-10)
If you are serving the Lord do you have great expectations as to your reward for the work you do? Because you are serving the Lord, do you believe that you have a greater entitlement than others in the blessings of the Lord? If so you may be in for a shock for in this section of scripture Jesus shows us that expecting any great reward for serving the Lord may be in vain. There is a blessing in doing the Lord’s work but it is not to be made a fuss over.
(Luke 17:5-6)
Ever cried out to the Lord saying those words? “Increase our faith!” Have you ever felt that your faith was lacking? Almost every Christian has asked at some time these same words that the disciples of the Lord asked him in this section of scripture. But the answer Jesus gave them is quite revealing, especially when we look at what faith is all about.
This is the interesting thing about this scripture. Jesus said, “If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamine tree, ‘Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” (Verse 6) Elsewhere he describes a mustard seed as being the smallest of seeds but that it grows into the largest of shrubs. (Matthew 13:31-32)
So what we gather from this is that you don’t need much faith. In fact a very small amount of faith will allow you to do miraculous things, if it is the will of God. So the real challenge is not about having more faith, it’s about having faith at all.
Then we see that like a mustard seed, the faith that we have will grow and expand, provided we have that first little bit and we nourish it. We need to feed and water it with the word of God so that it will grow. This is how to “increase our faith.”
Faith comes from knowledge through hearing the word of Christ. That’s what Paul showed us saying, “So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.” (Romans 10:17)
So if you want to increase your faith, increase your knowledge of the word of God. Listen to the words of Jesus and study the Bible and let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as Paul said in Colossians 3:16. When you absorb the words of the Lord and you see the word working in your life and changing you into the image of Christ, then faith grows as well. You learn to trust in Jesus knowing that he will do what he said he would do. And when you trust in the Lord, your faith becomes strong.
But with the addition of knowledge we need to learn humility as well. There is a danger with increasing in knowledge that we need to consider, for Paul shows us, “Knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up.” (1 Corinthians 8:1)
So the key to strengthening your faith is not knowledge alone, but knowledge tempered by love for love keeps us humble.
Well as I have just mentioned, you need love too. In fact in 1 Corinthians 13:13 Paul gives us that well known scripture, “So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Faith is active along with hope and love and these three form the side of a triangle. A triangle is the strongest geometric shape and so too the faith, hope and love triangle is a strong combination.
But Paul shows the greatest of these three is love and as I mentioned earlier, it is love that tempers the others, especially faith. In fact Paul says, “…if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:2) So here we see Paul expanding on the teaching that Jesus is giving us in this section of Luke 17. You don’t need a lot of faith to move mountains as Jesus showed us, but even if you did, without love it would be of no value.
It is love that lasts into eternity for God is love. When we are in the presence of God and enter eternal life with Him, we will not need faith. We will not need to hold onto a faith and a hope for something yet to come for we will be with Jesus. But love will keep us forever and it is by the power of love that we will live forever.
The work that the Lord is doing in each Christian is to bring them to the place where they are in the image of Christ. And to be in Christ’s image is to learn to live by the power of the love of God. He is teaching us how to love God’s way. But until we reach that place where we are living in the love of God, we need faith, and hope, and grace, and all the gifts of God for they are the tools and processes that will bring us to the place where we live in love.
It is a journey and faith is part of the process. So let us seek to increase our faith by learning the ways of God and trusting in Jesus to bring us to God.
(Photo sourced from stock.xchng www.sxc.hu/ taken by Dominic Morel)
Ask In Faith And It Will Be Done
The Parable Of Mustard Seed
(Luke 17:3-4)
Let’s face it, sin is a problem in the world. In addition we all make mistakes and mess up from time to time. Some people are callous and don’t care, but most people try to find a solution to their mistakes. That is where repentance and forgiveness come into play. Repentance and forgiveness are the two outcomes of sin where a person is seeking to make amends for their wrongdoing. Repentance on the part of the person who did wrong and forgiveness on the part of the one who was wronged.
(Luke 17:1-2)
For those who are coming to Jesus one of the great challenges is the need to resist temptation. In this section of scripture Jesus makes it abundantly clear that temptation to sin will surely come just as night always follows day. So it is important that we understand how to resist temptation and to know to expect temptations to sin will come. And knowing these things we can do something about them.
(Luke 16:19-31)
This parable is an interesting one for provides an insight into life after death. The rich man and Lazarus gives us several other insights as well including that miracles will not change the hearts and minds of a non-believer. A non-be liver will not accept the truth as we shall see in this parable of the rich man and Lazarus.
(Luke 16:16-18)
In this section of scripture Jesus shows us the end of an age. He draws a very distinct line in the sand that separates two periods and also provides a spiritual insight into living in the two ages. These spiritual ages, not physical ones, and the transition from one to the next is important. It is possible to still be in either age even today, or even attempt to be in both at the same time which may be hindering your walk with Christ.
Continue reading “The End of an Age” »
(Luke 16:14-15)
It is useful to have rules of thumb for many things. They help us to make decisions about matters when there is no other guidance. A rule of thumb according to Wikipedia can be described as, “An easily learned and easily applied procedure for approximately calculating or recalling some value, or for making some determination.” Three Bible has a number of rules of thumb that we can use to make determinations about situations that are useful in assessing whether a matter is of the truth or error. This section of scripture shows one such rule of thumb that is very useful.
Continue reading “Knowing God’s Will – A Good Rule of Thumb” »
(Luke 16:10-13)
There are several messages in this section of scripture and I will cover only one aspect at this time. Quite a few times I have written about the need to get your priorities right. When Jesus taught this message that you cannot serve God and mammon, he was saying it again, but with a twist. There is an even stronger message than just priorities contained in this section of scripture and to enter God’s kingdom it is a lesson we need to learn.
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