5And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” [simple_tooltip content=’5 And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”

6 So the Lord said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

7 And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down to eat’?

8 But will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink’?

9 Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not.

10 So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’”’](Luke 17:5-10)[/simple_tooltip]

 

The apostles requested the same thing from Jesus that millions of Christians ask for today. They want more faith. Jesus stunned them with His answer, just as the truth about faith stuns people today. He said they didn’t need more faith. The faith they had was sufficient to uproot a tree and cast it into the ocean. They just weren’t using the faith they had. (v. 6)

Jesus went on to correct a wrong idea most people have about faith. Faith doesn’t just show up and go to work for you. Faith must be told what to do; it is your slave. Masters don’t request slaves to work; they make them work. That’s the way you should view your faith. You don’t passively hope faith will perform or tentatively ask faith to work. You take the authority you have in Jesus and command it!

The reason the disciples didn’t see their faith work harder for them was because they hadn’t demanded more from their faith. They thought believing for miracles was so hard, it took more faith than what they had. That’s not true for them or for us. We have underestimated our slave. We have thought we needed many slaves; when the truth is, this slave (faith) is so powerful it can accomplish whatever we demand of it.

You know the faith God has given you works because you were born again by it. Now that you have experienced the greatest miracle in this life by the faith God gave you, don’t go back to thinking your needs are too big for your faith. If you got saved by faith, you can be healed, delivered, provided for, and promoted by faith. Put your faith to work today, and don’t let it rest until it gets the job done.