Increase My Faith???

I just love Saturday mornings!  A great workout at the gym and then some time quietly reading, studying and meditating on God’s Word with no distractions.  At times like these I can almost "feel" His Word taking root in deep within my heart...

This morning I was reading Luke, and this verse just stopped me in my tracks:  Luke 17:5 - the disciples demand that Jesus, "Increase our faith!"  Jesus responds in verse 6 by saying, “If you had the faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted into the sea,” and it would obey you.

A mustard seed is so small that you can barely see it with the naked eye.  So, I find it interesting that Jesus chose to use the smallest of all seeds to illustrate the power of faith.  When I looked up the Greek word for "faith” (i.e., “pistis”) I found that it means:  a conviction of the truth about anything.  However, in the New Testament, “pistis” means more specifically “a conviction or belief respecting one's relationship to God.” 

Then, I looked up the verb “had” (i.e., “echo”).  Much to my amazement, I discovered this word means, “to be closely joined to a person or a thing through the bonds of blood, marriage or friendship.”  So, just how closely are we joined to God?  Jesus said, “I am in them and You are in me so that they will be made perfectly one…Your love for me will be in them, and I myself will be in them.” (John 17:23;26) 

It is pretty clear that there is a vital connection between the seed of faith already within our hearts AND our heart’s understanding of who we are in Him:  We are now righteous  through the blood Jesus shed on the cross and our righteousness does not depend on what we do or don't do (I Jn 1:7); the relationship between Christ and the Church is likened to a marriage - it is intimate (Eph 5:29-32); and, Jesus said, “I no longer call you servants…instead, I have called you friends.” (Jn 15:15).   

We don’t need God to increase our faith!  Instead, we need to fully convince our hearts of our intimate and eternal connection in Him because our present circumstances don't respond to our mere words, but like the mulberry bush, they respond to the seed of faith in our heart.