Increasing Faith

1 Thessalonians 3: 10-13 - Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith.  Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you.  May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.  May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.  

This is just the end of the chapter…you really need to read the whole text to see how proud Paul was of these new Christians.  He was very worried that the persecution they were experiencing would weaken their faith…Paul speaks here of the power of true faith….how it strengthens us. And he adds this sweet prayer…to ask the Lord to continue to increase the love in their hearts for Christ…so their faith can also increase in power.

It doesn’t take much faith you know…Luke recorded Jesus’ very words on this subject…Luke 17:6 says, “ He replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you.” Jesus told them more than once that faith was important…that we just don’t strive to have enough of it…that a small portion of faith goes a long way. Matthew recorded another time when Jesus told the disciples they lacked faith in Matthew 17:20, “You don't have enough faith," Jesus told them. "I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it would move. Nothing would be impossible."

Problem is…most of us don’t stop to think about how much faith we have.  We allow the tempter…we allow Satan to trick us into thinking we have no faith…or worse yet…we allow him to convince us that God has left us….doesn’t love us because we strayed so far away…or did something so bad it can’t be fixed.  But we have to be like these early Christians….use our seed of faith that Christ planted in our hearts …the new faith in Christ he gave us…to draw us closer to his side…allow our faith to reach up and grasp God’s hand….and have the courage to ask him for more…so that we can travel through our persecution…through our trial to the other side…where the blessing is waiting for us.

Father…I know in my heart that my faith….is probably a little smaller than a molecule of something…but I thank you that you helped me to realize that I had it…for it has given me the power to move forward in the pain of my life hurts….to grasp hold of your hand instead of run farther away from you.  I thank you for Paul’s prayer ...and want to claim it for myself this morning.  Take the small seed of faith in you that you planted in me and make it … ‘increase and overflow’… so that my seed grows to the size of a mustard seed…so I can do all things through you….so my service to you will know no limits….so my dreams and visions of ways I can share your love will never have any boundaries. Amen