FAITH, BELIEF,THE MUSTARD SEED

Jesus discusses faith several times with His Apostles and compares a man's faith to a mustard seed, in order to demonstrate how little faith it takes to believe in God and how powerful even a tiny bit of faith can be in ones life, for instance:

MATTHEW: 17: 20; "And Jesus said unto them, Because of your belief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed ye shall say unto the mountain remove hence to yonder place and it shall remove and nothing shall be impossible to you."

LUKE: 17: 5-6; "And the apostles said unto the Lord, 'Increase our Faith'." And the Lord said, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed ye might say unto the sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you."

Note biblically speaking, belief and faith translate the same even though they have different spellings and different pronunciations. One cannot have faith, if one does not believe and visa versa.

When I first read these two scriptures, I had to read them a second and a third time. I then had to ask myself as I ask now: Was Jesus discussing self faith, or faith only in God, or was it a combined faith in God working through myself. It only took me a few seconds to ask myself the question and for Holy Spirit to give me the proper answer with God's Holy explanation.

I was reminded that faith without God, in other words self-faith was foolish, for without God failure is just around the corner. I was also reminded that faith in God without action is worth nothing, but if one has faith in God and belief that one can accomplish, where necessary with God's direct help one can accomplish miracles.

As children and teens, often parents or teachers or coaches will tell us that we can accomplish or become anything we desire, so long as we have faith in ourself, and this is true so long as we trust God to be the provider of all that we need to pull off these accomplishments. Without God's guidance we accomplish very little success.  

With these scriptures, to those who are simply inquisitive, or the not yet Christian, or to the Newly Converted, seeking to learn about Jesus and about Christianity, it might appear as though Jesus is referring to "Self Faith" believing that even without God, one might be able to do as Jesus suggests, that if one believes strong enough, in one's self that they could accomplish the virtually impossible. We have to help these people to understand that faith in God and faith in self must be combined.

We are led to think self-faith, because Jesus as he talked to His Apostles, knew and understood that His Apostles understood that of course Jesus was including God into the equation, but had He been addressing the five thousand as He did in His Sermon on The Mount He would have been more careful in the choice of His words.