Who Is Responsible for Growing Our Faith?
David W Palmer
Jesus, his loving Father, and the wonderful Holy Spirit all want us to produce plentiful harvests from the word-seed that they sow into the soil of our hearts. Their seed is perfect in every way; it is wholesome, holy, eternal, and incorruptible:
(1 Peter 1:23 NKJV) “… not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.”
But, as we have seen repeatedly, Jesus explained that the quality of the soil determines the outcome, and that the soil is our responsibility:
(Luke 8:15 NKJV) “But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.”
We have also seen that Jesus explained that working with God’s kingdom seeds is a process:
Meanwhile, we have thieving birds to fight off, weeds to contend with, and rocks to remove. Even when we think it must be ready, we wait some more … until—in harvest season—we see clear evidence that it is ready to harvest. Then we reap, and reap bountifully:
(Mark 4:20 NKJV) “But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”
The next parable Jesus gives in Mark 4 gives us even greater understanding of successful kingdom harvesting:
(Mark 4:30–32 DKJV) And he said, “Unto what shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what comparison shall we compare it? {31} It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that are in the earth. {32} But when it is sown it grows up, and becomes greater than all herbs, and shoots out great branches; so that the birds of the air may lodge under its shadow.”
Here, Jesus sets the scene of an herb grower. The kingdom is again compared to a seed—this time a mustard seed. It is small when sown in the earth, but it grows to the largest plant among the herbs—even to the point of providing a refuge for others.
I see two emphases in what Jesus said here: the size of the seed; and the fact that it had to be sown to get a result.
The first point is that when sown in a good and noble heart, even the smallest of “words” from God can grow into something dominant and useful in many ways—given the right soil, growing conditions, and maturation period.
The second point is that it has to be sown—out of the grasp of the intellect, senses, and emotions—before it will grow.
Jesus illustrates this process beautifully in Luke chapter 17, where he teaches his disciples this principle again—this time in the context of faith. We can see the struggle between a head ruled life and a spirit led life, illustrated perfectly in the following encounter between Jesus and his disciples:
(Luke 17:1–4 DKJV) Then he (Jesus) said to the disciples, “It is impossible that no offences will come; but woe to him, through whom they come! {2} It would be better for him if a millstone were hung about his neck and he was thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.
{3} Take heed to yourselves: if your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. {4} And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turns again to you, saying, ‘I repent’; you will forgive him.”
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This passage begins with a directive from the Lord to his apostles (apprentices / servants); he instructed them to forgive a brother up to seven times a day on a mere verbal commitment to repent—without actions and track-record to validate it. Realizing that it was incapable of doing this, the apostles’ intellect reacted immediately; its overflow exploded through their mouths. And, because the human intellect wants to be in control—fighting God’s plan that the human spirit controls the intellect—it retorted with a directive of its own:
(Luke 17:5 DKJV) And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”
This was not a humble request coming from submissive hearts; in grammar this is an imperative—a command. What’s more, it was a self-contradictory command. They used the word “Lord” to address Jesus, but instead of seeing themselves as the servants that should obey what he instructed; they saw themselves as those in control. So they reacted to his initial command by giving one back to him. But servants are not supposed to command their lord.
By addressing him as “Lord,” and then giving the orders, they showed an immature misunderstanding of their relationship to him. Jesus had to address this … but he did that a little later. First, he had to lovingly improve their immature understanding of faith.
The apostles had commanded Jesus: “Increase our faith!” Their intellect knew it didn’t possess the ability to have the kind of faith needed to obey Jesus’s original command about forgiving. Therefore, instead of relinquishing the process of faith to its God-given arena—the heart—their intellect tried to make God its servant by commanding him to give it the capacity of faith. If the intellect could get God to change his system by making the intellect the arena of faith—instead of the soil of the heart—it could remain in control. {This problem continues today, and it is one of the main reasons why I believe we need to keep studying all of Jesus’s kingdom parables about the seed.}
Jesus certainly didn’t say “yes” to their command, but he did use it as an opportunity to reveal reality to them. He began by correcting their misunderstanding about the working of faith-increase:
(Luke 17:6 DKJV) And the Lord said, “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you would say to this sycamore tree, ‘Be uprooted, and be planted in the sea’; and it would obey you.’”
The Lord begins with, “if you …” The, “if,” at the beginning, implies that what follows is a condition that we must fulfill: it is not his responsibility; we must do it.
Next, he stipulates the responsibility: “Have faith as a grain of mustard seed.” He did not say “the size of a mustard seed.” Yes, the mustard seed is very small, but that is only part of the story; the key issue here is that you treat your faith “as,” or like, you would a mustard seed.
The apostles certainly needed increased faith to fulfill Jesus’s original command; but it is their responsibility to grow it, not God’s. Maybe you feel that your faith is too small and insignificant. Perhaps, like the apostles, you feel the need to ask God to increase it for you. But this would be a frustrating prayer, as we read in this narrative. Jesus gives the heads up when he says to think of your faith as a seed. By following all of his instructions, you can grow your tiny seed faith to great faith—faith that can move mountains, receive answers, and calm storms, etc.
To grow a seed—even a tiny one like a mustard seed—you need to prepare your soil, plant it, fertilize it, fight the birds off it, and keep the weeds out. It doesn’t grow instantly, but it does grow effectively—given sufficient time in conducive conditions.
Jesus then said, “You would say to this sycamore tree, ‘Be uprooted, and be planted in the sea’; and it would obey you.” In effect, he is saying that if you grow your faith in this way, you can start giving orders—but not to your Lord; you can and should command things like fig trees, mountains, storms, demons, illnesses, and even dead people; and they will obey you.
Today, I believe Jesus’s application for us is easy to see and simple to grasp—but not so easy to apply. Our intellect may go into shock when it realizes that the growth of our faith is up to us, and that the condition of our heart is also our responsibility. But this is reality. We can pretend it isn’t; we can ask, beg, or even command God to grow our faith, but it simply won’t work, and we will be allowing precious growing time to slip by.
The wisest response to Jesus’s teaching is to renounce self-pity and the fallen intellectual instinct to command God. It is unwise and futile to order, instruct, or even beg our Lord to do for us what he has clearly given us the responsibility to do. Let’s squarely take on our shoulders the responsibility to grow our faith, and to tend the soil of our own hearts.
Yes, we can cast all of our cares, anxieties, and worries onto him. Yes, we can pray about everything. We can even depend on his wisdom, strength, power, and guidance. But we cannot expect him to do what he tells us to do: grow our faith, offer a “good and noble” heart for his seeds, renew our minds, worship in spirit and in truth, pray, walk in the spirit, and put off the “old man,” etc. These are our responsibilities along with “the one thing that is needful”: sitting at Jesus’s feet, listening, and really hearing his word in our hearts.
When we fulfill our responsibilities, we can grow to maturity. Then, we will experience everyday what Jesus declared in the following passage. Why? Because we will have all the doubts out of our hearts, and only his word overflowing through our mouths:
(Mark 11:23 NKJV) “For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.
Today, I encourage you to get over the shock; and to get busy with the responsibility of growing your faith, by focusing on God’s word—day and night.