WHAT TO DO WITH LITTLE FAITH

And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. (Mat 8:23-26 KJV)

And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? (Mat 14:28-31 KJV)

It is understood that if you don’t have faith you can’t walk with God but what if all you have is little faith? From the above scriptures it would seem that little faith also doesn’t achieve anything. The first instance was when Jesus was in a ship with his disciples and they encountered a great storm. The disciples, obviously afraid for their lives called to him for help. The Message version of the bible put it this way: They roused him, pleading, ‘Master, save us! We are going down!’

Time and again we get into situations that seem to defy our solutions and it seems as though there is no way out. Logically, under these kinds of duress we simply cry out to God for help. When the storms of life arise and we feel overwhelmed we usually just want God to step in and do something. We might express our feelings to him in diverse ways but the bottom line is that all we are saying is, ‘Lord save me, I am going down!’ This is exactly what the disciples did, so why should Jesus rebuke them in such manner?

To get to the root we must first understand faith; as that which brings the Person and Character of God into play in our lives. Faith releases the power of God in our lives so we can get the God kind of results. Put another way, faith is the approximation of the God life [the divine nature] into this physical realm to achieve the purposes of God.

The scripture also clearly teaches that a man can only have faith by or through just one means, that is, the word of God [Rom 10:17]. This is so because the word of God holds the promises and purposes of God for us. We can say therefore that the promises, thoughts and purposes of God for us are conveyed to us through the instrument of his word. So when a man in any given circumstance has received the Word of God in that situation we can say the man has faith. I believe that was simple enough.

What I want us to particularly note in these situations is that Jesus didn’t accuse them of having no faith. Rather he declared that they had little faith. The scripture didn’t say that Jesus accused them of having little faith; he only declared what he saw. If we look a little closer we would see that the reason for their ‘helplessness’ was in fact their fear and not their ‘little faith’. For a long time now I have come to the conclusion about the reasons Jesus rebuked them.

Number one is the obvious fact of their fear at that instance. The scripture clearly states in both instances that fear was present. When we are afraid we eliminate God from the situation and empower the storm to overwhelm us. The presence of fear precludes [prohibit, impedes, rule out] the act and therefore result of faith: Faith and fear are both mutually exclusive.

The second and most important reason was that Jesus saw that they had little faith that they refused to utilize. What you do with little faith is the same thing you do with big faith; USE IT! It is actually as simple as that. It is the same ‘little faith’ that Peter had that enabled him walk on water and he didn’t start sinking until he excluded faith by including fear in the equation! Are you getting my gist?

To understand this is to lay hold of an eternal truth that can and will change your life for the better. It doesn’t matter your level of spiritual growth, if you’ve got faith [and you do! Rom 12:3], all you have to do to get results is use it. Hallelujah! Importantly, it is only as you use it that it will keep growing! That means that if you want to have great faith start using your little faith.

In conclusion let’s consider this portion of scripture;

And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. (Mat 17:14-20 KJV)

The disciples couldn’t cast out this demon and when they asked Jesus why he answered and said, ‘because of your unbelief’ and he then went further to explain how it could have been done; ‘IF YOU HAVE FAITH AS A GRAIN OF MUSTARD SEED [which is very little]… Nothing shall be impossible to you!’ This really gets me highly excited. Many times our emphasis has been on the littleness of the mustard but I believe the key here is what you do with the seed; PLANT IT! WHAT JESUS WAS REALLY SAYING WAS, ‘IF YOU HAVE FAITH AS LITTLE AS A MUSTARD SEED, JUST USE IT AND YOU SHALL HAVE TREMENDOUS RESULTS [as you would have if you plant a mustard seed that grows as a mighty tree]! Can somebody shout hallelujah!

So go now and start using your faith, no matter how little it is.