Does the Amount of Your Faith Make a Difference?

How much faith do you need to meet your needs? The biggest miracle you ever received and will ever receive is the new birth. The little amount of faith you used to believe in Jesus as your Lord, moved you from Satan’s kingdom into God’s, from spiritual death into eternal life, and from satanic darkness into the kingdom of light. Any other need you may have in your life is eclipsed by your deliverance at salvation. Every other miracle in your life is temporary - healing, deliverance from demons, or even being raised from the dead. It lasts from the time you receive it until you die. But salvation is eternal. This is why angels rejoice over your salvation and not over your healing or physical miracle.

Nothing will ever compare with the power demonstrated by God when He removed you from Satan’s family and made you His own child. So why do you need more faith to receive a lesser miracle? Why do you need a mountain of faith to be healed, or be delivered from oppression? We are all guilty of telling others who did not receive healing, “you needed more faith.”  We have also been told by others or condemned ourselves with the same answer when we failed to receive an answer to prayer, “I guess I didn’t have enough faith.”  We spend time trying to build up our faith when this isn’t the answer at all. We are not in need of more faith, but liberating and setting free the faith we have. In foreign countries, we see people receiving Jesus as Lord and immediately being healed of incurable diseases, receiving their eyesight, or hearing, or having missing limbs restored. What is even more mysterious, many are healed of incurable diseases and then become saved. These people have not had time to build up a great amount of faith. What little faith they have is simply unhindered.

The Day the Disciples Failed

In Matthew 17:14-21 Jesus was called on to cast out a demon from a young boy. His disciples failed, and the father now looked to Jesus for the answer.   And Jesus rebuked the devil, and he departed out of him.  The child was cured at that time. When the disciples came to Jesus later, they asked Him, “Why couldn’t we cast him out?” (vs. 18-19)

The disciples were confused about why they failed and were confused when Jesus was successful, and they were not. What was the problem? They had been successful before. When Jesus first gave them power over unclean spirits and every type of sickness (Matthew 10:1), they went out to try their newfound authority over Satan. They came back rejoicing that demons were subject to them (Luke 10:17). This instance in Matthew 17 was not the first time but one of many times they came up against demons. Why were they not successful this time?

The story is told again in Mark 9:14-27. Mark fills us in on details Matthew did not give. Mark tells us the disciples were surrounded by a large multitude of people who were watching. There were also a group of Pharisees who were antagonizing and questioning the disciples. The young boy who needed deliverance also fell to the ground wallowing and foaming from his mouth. The disciples were put on the spot for the first time. Each time before, the disciples had probably cast out devils in the privacy of a home or somewhere away from crowds. Now all eyes were on them, and the people were skeptical. They felt the pressure of the worried father, the onlooking crowd, and the critical attitude of the religious leaders. Under this great pressure, they failed for the first time.

What Was Jesus’ Answer?

When the Disciples asked Jesus why they could not cast out the devil, He did not tell them they did not have enough faith. “Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20).

Apparently, before speaking with Jesus, the disciples tried to analyze their failure among themselves. They probably concluded they didn’t have enough faith. This is why Jesus mentioned the small amount of faith needed to remove problems in the Christian life. Between the last successful case of casting out a devil and this occasion of failure, something unnoticed had crept into the faith life of the disciples. The problem with the disciples was not a need for more faith, but less unbelief. In fact, a very small amount of faith, the size of a mustard seed, would move a mountain and guarantee no impossibilities from that time on. But the mustard seed must be unhindered. A little bit of unbelief will nullify the power of faith.

Faith was never designed to be a tug of war. When unbelief is absent, a mustard seed amount of faith will carry a mountain into the sea. Unbelief acts as an opponent to faith and pulls the mountain from the other direction. Faith is nullified and the mountain remains. This was Jesus’ answer to the disciples for their inability to cast out the devil. Jesus walked into the same situation as the disciples and was not moved by the attention of the crowd or the critical attitude of the Pharisees. He also did not become frightened by the young boy who fell on the ground wallowing and foaming but cast out the devil and set the young boy free. Jesus was a man of faith, but he also had no unbelief. His faith was free and unhindered.

The Power of a Mustard Seed

Do you remember the song many years ago about the ant who wanted to move a rubber tree plant? With high hopes (we would say faith), he did. Have you ever been on a picnic and watched a piece of popcorn or cake crumb go walking off? When you looked closer at the cake or popcorn, you found an ant underneath. The ant can move objects much larger and heavier than itself. But faith is even more powerful. Imagine a mountain moving without any visible means. If you could lift the mountain, you would find a measure of faith the size of a mustard seed carrying the mountain toward the sea. Jesus said the mustard seed, indeed is the least of all seeds (Matthew 13:31-32). After the mountain is gone, the mustard seed can keep on working and guarantee absolute success in every case from then on. This tiny speck of faith would ask only one thing, “keep me unhindered and free from unbelief.”

When Jesus met resistance to his healing and miracle power, he did not blame it on a lack of faith, but on a presence of unbelief. The scriptures tell us much more about ridding ourselves of unbelief than increasing our faith. Let’s look at a few scriptures. “He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief” (Matthew 13:58).

“He marveled because of their unbelief” (Mark 6:6).

“Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief…” (Mark 16:14).

What is the instruction to us as New Testament Church age believers?   “So we see they could not enter in because of unbelief” (Hebrews 3:19, 4:6).

“Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.” (Hebrews 4:11).

How Do We Get Rid of Unbelief?

“However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:21).

Jesus was not referring to the demon. There is no demon which is not subject to the name of Jesus (Luke 10:17-19, Ephesians 1:21-22). The object to which Jesus referred to that needed to be removed, was unbelief.  There are two types of unbelief, rebellious unbelief, and passive unbelief. Rebellious unbelief comes from sin. It openly defies the word and power of God. The exodus generation was guilty of this type of unbelief. When Moses gave the promises of God, they hardened their heart and spoke out against God and Moses. This was not the unbelief Jesus’ disciples faced. They faced passive unbelief when trying to cast out the devil from the young boy. The disciples honestly believed God, but their faith was nullified. They asked Jesus in all honesty why they could not cast out the devil this time.

Passive unbelief comes from over occupation with the legitimate things of life. It is described in Mark 4:18-19 as thorns which choke the word and make it unfruitful. The thorns of unbelief are described as the necessities of this age, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the lusts of other things that enter in and choke the word. Necessities, wealth, and things are all legitimate areas of life. This parable warns us about too much time spent with them and the result. God wants our time to be taken up with prayer and the word of God. In 2 Corinthians 10:5 we have a good definition of this type of unbelief. “Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God....”  Unbelief comes with reasonings which come against the word of God. This type of unbelief must be starved to death and can no longer exalt themselves against the knowledge of God.