Faith

So i had a great weekend, Tim it was awsome being able to spend the weekend up there at uconn, I wish I could make it up there more often. Its interesting though, I missed reading my bible. I was thinking about it,and not to brag or anything...but, I've read my bible and done this blog everyday now for 3 weeks. Sometimes i don't post right away but after 3 weeks of doing it....it was al I could think about when I came home.

Anywho lets jump in. Im really going to focus more on Matthew 17:14-21. Matthew 17 starts out with the transfiguration of Jesus, which is pretty crazy. I can't Imagine being in Peter's sandals while that was goin down. When all thats over they come back to where the rest of the disciples are and find this man with a demon possesed son.

For anyone who is familiar with the "nooma" videos, I think they're awsome and got this idea from them. In one of the videos, dust, it talks about a very similar theme as in this passage. Verse 14 starts out like this (ESV)
14When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. 15"Lord, have mercy on my son," he said. "He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him."

17"O unbelieving and perverse generation," Jesus replied, "how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me." 18Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed from that moment.

19Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, "Why couldn't we drive it out?"

20He replied, "Because you have so little faith. 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."

Now looking at this initially its easy to see that the disciples where trying to be like Jesus. Which is what disciples do. If you read "Velvet Elvis" or see this nooma video "dust" it says that disciples followed so closely to their rabbi that this saying came around. It says "may the dust of your rabbi be upon you". Disciples of that time would follow so closely to their rabbi trying to keep up where ever he goes that by the end of the day they would have everything that the rabbi stepped in all over them. So its natural for a disciple to want to do what the rabbi does. So to see these disciples trying to heal this epileptic kid makes sense.

I could see how this gets played out with the disciples who are attempting to heal this kid. In my head it looks something like this. One disciple says to another " ah, I don't know, I've never actually HEALED anyone before..." and the other one says to the father "You might wanna wait for Jesus, hes up on the hill transfiguring right now, could you come back in like an hour?" and yet another one saying "Nono, its ok I got this." "Oh yeah right, you're gonna heal the boy, you'd probably just make him worse!". "No, I can do it....In the name of GOD be HEEEAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLed." after a bit of a pause "Well that didn't do much", "At least I didn't kill him!", "Oh wait here comes Jesus, he'll handle this one, I'll get the next one."

It might not have gone down exactly like that, but thats how I like to think of it. What does Jesus say when he first gets back? "Oh unbelieving and perverse generation". No light words here. He goes on to say you couldn't drive him out because you have no faith. No faith? It seems like today everyone is worried about faith in God, if only I had more faith in God, I could do his will, or be blessed, or not worry so much. But Jesus isn't talking about faith in God. The disciples had plenty of faith in Jesus. By this point they have seen more miracles, eaten more holy fish and bread, and survived more stormy boat rides then anyone else around.

No, what Jesus is saying here is that you couldn't drive out the demon because you didn't have any faith in yourself.

Earlier, in Matthew 14 we find the same thing. Jesus comes walking on the water and Peter, wanting to be like his rabbi, says lord if its you then call me over to you. Jesus calls him and Peter starts to walk on water toward Jesus. But then he begins to sink and what does Jesus say to him? Oh you of little faith. Peter has Faith that Jesus can walk on water, Jesus is walking on water right in front of his eyes. No, Peter looses faith in himself to be able to walk on water.

Back to chapter 17:20 Jesus says "...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." Jesus wants us to know that he believes in us. He thinks we can do it, we can make it. Jesus is right there next to you cheering you on saying "I know you can do it, Go for it!" Its not an easy thing to do. Its more than the initial step, Peter was walking on water. If the disciples really had faith in themselves to drive out the demons. Often times we don't see ourselves like Jesus sees us.

Its hard for us to get over our sin. Jesus doesn't see that as a part of us though. He wants us to go for it. Just try. put effort into it. keep going when it hurts. you might feel pain. you might feel week. you might cry. But remember this...Jesus has faith in you.

For me this is super encouraging. This whole past week I cant stop worrying about the well. Its so easy for me to remember my past, see where I was and think "God can't use me I'm filthy". But thats not how Jesus sees me. On Sunday I was doing sound for church and at one point I fell to my knees in tears because I felt God telling me this... "Yes, I can use you" and then he said "tell them I can use them too"