Wed. Night Impact

I spoke to the Jr. Highers on Wed. night about faith, and how to get more faith. I started off with a card trick that I learned off of youtube. I think it dazzled them. The Bible talks about having faith like a child. A child believes anything blindly. Tell them about a chubby guy who flies around on a sled that is carried by magical deer and gives presents to good little boys and girls, and they believe it. It's not that we should believe in just anything anybody tells us. God tells us to beware of false prophets, but we should have that full, innocent faith without any doubt.
So when I was a kid, I believed in magic. But I also believed that UFO's were going to come and abduct me when I fell asleep. I also believed that there were little men who lived in a village in my wall who would run all night in my room between the wall and the desk and my bed, but I could never catch them.
Belief is based on imagination. Faith is based on experience; even somebody else's experience. I've never seen molecules, but I have faith that they exist. I've never looked through an electron microscope to see them, but I've read about them in books and trust that the people who have written that book has experienced seeing these molecules. The Bible is what we base our entire faith on, and the experience of the writers.
The Bible is not a "How-To" book and we can't read it as that. We can't read it when we have a problem and scan it for a quick fix. Although it does tell us how to do stuff, that's not it's primary purpose. The purpose of the Bible is to communicate God's story through history of his creation.
So we're not going to find a 10-step process to finding how to get a deeper faith.
Our passage was Luke 17:5-10.
It starts out with the disciples asking Jesus for more faith. I use to think that if I saw a miracle, that would make my faith super-strong. But the disciples were with Jesus 24/7, and Jesus was always saying that they had such little faith. They saw all his miracles. They talked face to face with him, and they had little faith. I don't think miracles build faith. People forget about them or explain them off. I think God used miracles to get people's attention, not to build faith. The burning bush with Moses, the dew on the fleece with Gideon, these were to get attention. And most of the miracles that Jesus performed were on people that already had faith. He was always saying that their faith is what made them well. These people had faith already. So I don't think seeing a miracle is the way to build our faith.
The next verse Jesus says that if we have the faith the size of a mustard seed, then we would be able to tell this bush to get up and go jump in the Ocean. I don't necessarily think that Jesus meant this passage literally. Because if I had that kind of faith where I could do that, I would be doing it to every tree and bush I passed. I think that would be awesome. I'd have trees get up and start chasing people, swinging their branches at them. It would be hilarious to me, terrifying to them.
The mustard seed is the smallest seed that they knew of. So, Jesus was saying that our faith is even smaller than that. And a lot of my life I've worried about getting my faith to this point, because if I do, then I can have all kinds of power for God. I could heal the sick, raise the dead, move trees and mountains. But I can't even heal my headaches. Sometimes I beat myself up about not having a big enough faith. But having faith doesn't make you a magician. It's not so that we can do cool little tricks to impress people. Our faith should be to glorify God.
I think God gives us faith to accomplish what he wants us to do. Right after Jesus tells us about faith the size of a mustard seed, he tells a story about a servant serving his master first, and himself second. I think it's interesting that the disciples were asking about faith, and the story Jesus tells doesn't seem to have anything to do with faith, it's about serving God. The closest I ever feel to God is when I'm serving him and loving others. I think Jesus is saying to his disciples that to build your faith, concentrate on serving God first, and then yourself second. God has a purpose for you, and He will give you faith to accomplish that. Maybe it's not your job to heal a blind man. Maybe it's your job to encourage the old man at Wal-Mart. God will help you accomplish that.
So, to build your faith I think there are 2 things we can do. First, we can ask God for it. Pray for faith. Second, serve God first. Love him, love the people around you, and then serve yourself second. If we do these two things, I think we will see our faith grow.