The Bible never praises the “heroes of the faith” for having more faith than any other Christian. In fact, neither the phrase “more faith” nor “enough faith” ever shows up in the Bible. Jesus only ever praised two people for the amount of faith they had, (see chart below), and their reward for being the greatest possessors of faith: healing. Just like everyone else received that day…in fact, worse than some: they received nothing for themselves and only a healing for someone else. Other people got healings for themselves or family members raised from the dead.
Parable: Susan is in need of brain surgery. She is very excited to finally be free from the pain she’s been experiencing. The day of the surgery arrives and her world-class surgeon is flown in to complete the procedure. In twenty years of experience, he has performed exactly 1,256 surgeries with minimal complications, none of them ever serious or lasting. This will be the first of two brain surgeries for him today. Susan couldn’t trust him more.
Yet, as she drives to the hospital, she finds herself increasingly nervous. As she enters the hospital and is ushered into a changing room, she feels shaky and finds that her hands are trembling. “I don’t know what’s wrong,” she tells the nurse. “I guess I’m just excited.” As they wheel her down the hallway, she can’t shake thoughts about “what if…?” What if the doctor was out late last night and was tired today? What if the nurse had marked the chart incorrectly? What if the anesthesia wore off and she could feel the whole surgery?
She tries to tell herself that the doctor is the best there is, but the thoughts won’t go away. What if she’s about to be the first death in this doctor’s pristine record? There’s got to be a first, right? “Just in case,” she tells herself, “I want to be sure my husband and my kids know I love them. I have to get that message to them.” She’s increasingly and uncontrollably anxious.
"Faith is the art of holding onto things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods." –C.S. Lewis
If a person does not find compelling reasons to follow Jesus, it is not a respectable thing for them to place their faith in Him. I offer no compelling reasons here, only the observation that a tiny faith in God places a person on a journey where the direction and the momentum are pre-determined. For example, I find it impossible to always give 10% to the church just a little bit; or always forgive sometimes; or read the Bible everyday most days (not that this is the definitive list). Once a person decides to trust that the Bible is from God, they’ve committed to many life changes!*
Sadly, few ‘christians’ know what these changes look like because we neither trust Him nor act like we trust Him. To find out what faith would look like in your life, ask yourself, “What would I act like if I believed that God really was God?” This question will cause most honest or new Christians to imagine themselves acting in a way they do not currently act: “I would pray practically all day.” “I would tithe.” “I would err on the side of sharing Christ too frequently instead of putting it off.” …or some other thing they know Jesus commanded, but for which they have rationalized themselves out of responsibility. (For the more religiously entrenched, the above question will not provoke a response at all. They respond, “I DO believe that He really is God. I would act pretty much like I do.” Few things will help this person recover from their religion.)
This is the Christian faith: that God is 100% sovereign. 100% powerful. 100% right. No exceptions. Ever. Therefore, it is an oxy-moron to say, “Yeah, I kind of have faith in God,” because one cannot believe that God is a little bit 100% sovereign/holy. What that person might be trying to say is, “I am undecided about whether or not I believe in God,” or “I am afraid (emotionally) that He is not God,” but the game we play is to believe that He is God a little bit. That is not a real option. That is not a rational option. It is up to us to trust or not to trust.
When a person makes the choice to trust in a particular religion, questions will arise along the way. (There are some things about my theology that are still very troubling to me!) But Christians are so afraid to say “I don’t know,” or to even slightly agree with a doubter. This is the source of so much of the defamation of the Christian name. Such Christians usually have one of two responses to troubling questions:
1: Delusion. The vast majority of ‘christians’ are thoroughly unprepared for troubling questions about their beliefs. Most will gladly adopt pure idiocy before they reconsider the validity of any part of their proposition. If the questions are private, the ‘christian’ represses them; if the questions are public, the ‘christian’ tries to rationalize, and usually not very well! (Examples of this can be seen in Bill Maher’s “Religulous”, any Christian portrayal on a major network, or scattered throughout a local church.) For these people, the fall back answers to difficult questions are “We don’t get to question God,” or “God’s ways are mysterious,” or just plain nonsense.
2: Retreat. Problems in trying to understand God cause many people to approach their religious obligations tentatively, hoping for the best of both worlds: a little autonomy and a little spirituality. But to reduce my tithe check, to attend church less, to pray infrequently, is to experience the worst of both worlds, not the best. Surely I will find the experience unfulfilling, and surely I will blame the religion. I will end up leaving it without a full commitment, without a true test of its validity.
I have seen a depressingly large number of these people “fizzle out” of Christianity: they experienced some setback or embarrassment and, instead of digging in to see if God has anything to offer in such a situation, they slowly shrink back into the “God knows I’m a Christian” corner, with no works that would come from a real faith. They say they trust the surgeon, but they keep rescheduling the surgery. As is the case with Susan, some faith equals no faith.
As another example, fear of a particular medication’s side effects may lead a person to not take the full amount prescribed. When the sickness returns, incurable, it is not because of a lack of faith. The patient could have had very little faith and followed the directions in fear. And this is the point of it all: when it comes to faith, it matters not “how much?” but “in what?” Susan had a choice to make about the doctor. How much she trusted one over the other did not matter, only that she chose to trust the right one. I think this was the point Jesus was trying to make when He said, “If your faith in me is the size of a mustard seed, moving mountains will be no big deal.” Our immediate reaction is, “Wow! If that’s what I can do with a mustard seed of faith, I bet I can do really awesome things with a lot of faith!” We get stuck on what we can do with the faith when He’s telling us where to place our faith. The message isn’t “trust more” it’s “trust right”.
Instead, I would like to have the deal, “God, I’ll obey you more as you prove yourself to me.” After all, that works with rickety bridges and lawn furniture, but it doesn’t work with something that is to be feared, (like the exposed wire for my 220 volt dryer). I don’t mess with it before I decide. I either resolve that it is live or it isn’t. Mind you, I research it. I check the breaker, use the voltmeter, change the batteries and use the voltmeter again. I may even try to arc it with another wire, but there is a decision I make and a moment of truth when I am either willing to grab the wire or treat it like it’s live. There is no “kind of” grabbing the wire. Likewise, there is no ‘kind of’ Christianity recognized by God. God is a thing to be feared. If yours is not, he’s not really God at all, and your Jesus’ crucifixion is just your play thing – a mental retardation you’ve adopted to justify acting contrary to your own conscience.
Fear of an awesome, Holy God will cause us to act as if we believe even when we forget why. Susan forgot. She had good reason to trust the doctor. Emotionally, she couldn’t. Her faith caused her to go through with the surgery in spite of her doubts. It was not that her faith no longer made sense. In fact, her faith was the only thing that did make sense. But emotions can cloud a good rationale and circumstances can cloud a good memory. Susan’s what-if’s filled her thoughts until she was unable to recall all the statistics she knew about the reliability of her surgeon. C.S. Lewis puts it like this: “Now that I am a Christian, I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable; but when I was an atheist, I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable…Unless you teach your moods "where they get off" you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist.”
"Never doubt in the darkness what God has shown you in the light." – Corrie Ten Boom, Holocaust survivor
*This makes becoming a Christian far more impactful than most any other choice. I honestly do not recommend it without at least very serious consideration. Neither does Jesus. (Luke 14:25-33) For a list of changes you will need to make, do not ask a religious person. Read Matthew or Mark or Luke or John for yourself. Jesus repeatedly gives these guidelines because the religious people were always asking him for this exact list.
** In defense of having more faith, it does allow the believer to be more creative, since the evidence of the strength of faith is the confidence with which one acts on the belief. I have to smirk when I think about the centurion soldier who was praised for his amount of faith: everyone else COMES to Jesus to be healed. This man says to himself, “Why lug this sick, full-grown adult with me all the way out to Jesus?” Genius! Essentially, everyone else is in line at the packed-out convention center hoping to be touched by Jesus, and this guy sends Jesus a text: “pls heal srvnt. thx =)” …then he’s off to run his other errands.
All of Jesus’ Mentions of Faith in Matthew | |
Commended for faith (notice: none religious) | Chastised for doubt (notice: all religious) |
· Centurion, praised for “great faith” – Matthew 8:10 · Shunamite woman, praised for “great faith” – Matthew 15:28 · Friends of a paralytic – Matthew 9:2 · Woman touching cloak – Matthew 9:22 · Blind men – Matthew 9:29 | · Disciples worrying about things: Matthew 6:30 · Disciples worrying about the storm: Matthew 8:26 · People in synagogue – Matthew 15:38 · Peter on the water – Matthew 14:31 · Disciples worrying about food – Matthew 16:8 · Disciples unable to cast out demons – Matthew 17:20 |
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