Just A Little Faith

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Advent Week 2: Preparation/Waiting

It’s the second week of advent, which means it’s the second week of commemorating the Christmas season! We don’t use that word “advent” very often in day to day conversation anymore, but all it means is the the arrival of a notable person, thing, or event. In this case, of course we’re celebrating the arrival of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, some two thousand years ago.
We have candles that we’re lighting for each week leading up to Christmas, as a simple, symbolic visual of the light that Jesus IS in the world. And we have some passages from Isaiah, Psalms, and the gospels that we’re reading to meditate on various aspects of advent.
Last week, the theme of our passages was the hope, the promise, of the messiah, which goes all the way back to the garden of Eden and traces throughout the whole Old Testament, ultimately pointing to Jesus.
This week, the theme is closely related to that promise, but it’s more specifically the anticipation and preparation for it. For thousands of years people prepared, and waited, faithfully for the fulfilment of the promise.
The first passage we’ll read from Isaiah talks about the forerunner, someone who would come before the messiah to pave the way, to make people ready to receive the Messiah. And we’ve seen that fulfilled and confirmed in Matthew, in the person of John the Baptist. This passage is prophesying the ministry of John the Baptist, and was written hundreds of years before he was born:

Isaiah

Isaiah 40:1–11 LEB
1 “Comfort; comfort my people,” says your God. 2 “Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her, that her compulsory labor is fulfilled, that her sin is paid for, that she has received from the hand of Yahweh double for all her sins.” 3 A voice is calling in the wilderness, “Clear the way of Yahweh! Make a highway smooth in the desert for our God! 4 Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill shall become low, And the rough ground shall be like a plain, and the rugged ground like a valley-plain. 5 And the glory of Yahweh shall be revealed, and all humankind together shall see it, for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.” 6 A voice is saying, “Call!” And he said, “What shall I call?” All humankind are grass, and all his loyalty is like the flowers of the field. 7 Grass withers; the flower withers when the breath of Yahweh blows on it. Surely the people are grass. 8 Grass withers; the flower withers, but the word of our God will stand forever. 9 Get yourself up to a high mountain, Zion, bringer of good news! Lift up your voice with strength, Jerusalem, bringer of good news! Lift it up; you must not fear! Say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” 10 Look! The Lord Yahweh comes with strength, and his arm rules for him. Look! His reward is with him, and his recompense in his presence. 11 He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arm, and he will carry them in his bosom; he will lead those who nurse.

Psalm

Our next passage is from Psalm chapter 85, and it’s a poetic meditation about the preparation for the Messiah, written right in the middle of this waiting period.
Psalm 85:8–13 LEB
8 I will hear what God, Yahweh, will speak, because he will speak peace to his people, even his faithful ones, but let them not return to folly. 9 Surely his salvation is near for those who fear him, that glory may abide in our land. 10 Loyal love and faithfulness will meet one another; righteousness and peace will kiss. 11 Faithfulness will sprout from the ground, and righteousness will look down from heaven. 12 Yes, Yahweh will give what is good, and our land will give its produce. 13 Righteousness will go before him, and it will make his steps a pathway.

Mark

In the gospel accounts, we see the direct fulfillment of this prophecy, and each of the synoptic gospels even quote this passage from Isaiah:
Mark 1:1–8 CSB
1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way. 3 A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight! 4 John came baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. 6 John wore a camel-hair garment with a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, “One who is more powerful than I am is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

2 Peter

Our final passage is in 2 Peter chapter 3. This was written much later on, after Jesus ascended and the holy spirit was given to his followers. Peter writes in this letter about the anticipation and preparation we still have today, looking forward to when Jesus will again return, the second advent, if you will:
2 Peter 3:8–14 NLT
8 But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. 9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. 10 But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment. 11 Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live, 12 looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along. On that day, he will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames. 13 But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness. 14 And so, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in his sight.

Prayer

Just a little faith

Last week we looked at the mountaintop experience of a few of the disciples with Jesus.
ask: Have you ever had a mountaintop experience?
The problem with mountaintop experiences is that eventually you have to come down from that mountain. In many of our biblical encounters, what awaits at the bottom is usually not good.
As Jesus, Peter, James and John came down the mountain, the discussion was on the reality that Jesus was going to suffer the same way that John the Baptist did - angry men that resented his message will have him killed.
We are in the part of the book that transitions from proving the deity of Jesus to preparing his disciples for the events to come. He just displayed his glory to the 3 on the mountain and told them how he was going to suffer like John. Even though the disciples had declared Jesus to be the Messiah, the son of Yahweh, they still had a lot to learn.
Apparently, while Jesus and the 3 were on the mountain, the crowds, including the scribes, had gathered around and one man’s story makes the headlines because of the epic failure of the 9 who were on the ground at the bottom of the mountain...
Matthew 17:14–20 CSB
14 When they reached the crowd, a man approached and knelt down before him. 15 “Lord,” he said, “have mercy on my son, because he has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire and often into the water. 16 I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn’t heal him.” 17 Jesus replied, “You unbelieving and perverse generation, how long will I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.” 18 Then Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and from that moment the boy was healed. 19 Then the disciples approached Jesus privately and said, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” 20 “Because of your little faith,” he told them. “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
This narrative is about faith and failures.

Failures

We could probably start by talking about the failures, right?
The man came seeking Jesus, who was gone, so he went to the disciples. The disciples failed to heal the boy.
But the man also failed. He came seeking the miraculous, but missed the miracle of who he was talking to! The man failed to come to Jesus to know him or the father, he came to get something from Jesus.
I believe this is the reason Jesus had such harsh words for the man and the crowds:
“You are unbelieving & perverse” - this is a unique phrase to this narrative. The word “unbelieving” most often refers to those that do not believe in Yahweh - or Jesus. “Perverse” is not a moral condition, but one of being “crooked”, or purposefully straying from the truth. They are being described as a people who have purposefully strayed from the truth of God’s anointed one - Jesus.

Healing

I think we need to pause and think on this for a moment. The man came for healing, not for a relationship with Jesus. Jesus says the generation missed the mark and were rejecting God.
IN SPITE of that, Jesus chose to heal the boy!
We do not know why. We are not told his motive or his heart, we just read that Jesus did it!
I am so grateful for the GRACE and MERCY of God! And I want you to think about this - if he chose to display this act of mercy to someone with wrong motives, how much more might he choose to bless his own children if they will come to him and follow the straight path?!
A question that has come up a few times in this gospel is whether or not there is a difference between “healing” and “casting out” demons. In our modern culture we tend to compartmentalize the spiritual into a separate bucket than the physical. I would say this is an unfortunate separation. In the scriptures there is not such a distinction. BOTH physical and spiritual need healing. Matthew uses “heal” twice, and also uses “rebuke” and “drive out ”.
While medicine can fix the physical, God is greater than both the physical and the spiritual and can heal both.
The boy was healed from that day onward.
While some people may also be healed or delivered from sins such as abusiveness, rage, pornography, etc we should realize that some may not experience that same deliverance. The spiritual healing of going from death to life is a once for all deal - but the heart and the desires of the flesh are things we will struggle with in this life. Some may be granted complete healing from certain vices and others may not. In either case, it is a great idea to ask God to deliver you from it!
Though we may wonder why Jesus would choose to heal the boy and not just send the crooked crowds away without a miracle, we get the answer from Luke’s account of this narrative:
Luke 9:42–43 (CSB)
42 As the boy was still approaching, the demon knocked him down and threw him into severe convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. 43 And they were all astonished at the greatness of God.
According to Luke to end result is that the crowds (and possibly even some of the scribes) were astonished at the greatness of God.
That’s the point, isn’t it? All of life exists to declare the supremacy and glory of God. God can choose to bless whomever he wants to in that process, and DOES!

Faith

This passage is most famous for what happens AFTER the healing. The disciples speak to Jesus in private about their inability to heal the boy and Jesus said it was because of their little faith.
Matthew 17:20 CSB
20 “Because of your little faith,” he told them. “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
I have to confess that this passage makes me uneasy. How about you? Have you ever wrestled with this passage before?
If you have faith, nothing will be impossible to you, If you have a faith as small as a mustard seed.

The mustard seed was the smallest of all the seeds commonly planted in Palestine at that time.

THIS is a passage that I have heard abused by many over the years and at the same time is a passage I am positive I do not know all there is to know about!
Was Jesus saying that the disciples did not have faith that they could cast out a demon? Is that really what happened here? Is Jesus saying, “If you just had a bit more faith you could have done it”.
ask: How may of you think that might be the lesson here - or have heard that preach that message?
I must admit I have been in churches that do believe and teach that you simply need to have more faith, and if your prayers are not answered and you are not healed it is because you lack faith. I call this “faith-shaming” and it is not only bad theology but a horrible defamation of Yahweh’s name.
While the Bible certainly teaches the importance of faith, the “name it, claim it” theology prevalent in today’s society is not consistent with the teachings I find in scriptures. Yes, there are passages like this one that *seem* to make that claim.
ask: How many of you consider the Apostle Paul a man of great faith?
Of course he was! Listen to Paul’s words from his letter to the Church in Corinth:
2 Corinthians 12:7b–9 (CSB)
7 ...Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself. 8 Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.”
If Paul was a great man of faith, how is it that he could pray 3 times and not have his prayer answered according to his desires?THAT is the key… his desires vs God’s. God wanted Paul to be in that situation.

little faith

This is not the first time we have seen this phrase in Matthew’s gospel. Let’s look at the other instances together:
The first time we see this phrase is in the sermon on the hill. The mass of disciples were encouraged that they could trust God for their daily needs:
Matthew 6:30 CSB
30 If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t he do much more for you—you of little faith?
The second time we encounter the phrase was when the disciples were terrified for their lives as a storm threatened to sink their boat and drown them.
Matthew 8:26 CSB
26 He said to them, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.
In that passage they got to see that Jesus was able to command nature. This was with just the 12 disciples.
The very next time we have this phrase the 12 disciples are again on the water and Jesus walks to them. Peter asks to go out on the water with Jesus.
Matthew 14:28–32 CSB
28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter answered him, “command me to come to you on the water.” 29 He said, “Come.” And climbing out of the boat, Peter started walking on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the strength of the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand, caught hold of him, and said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32 When they got into the boat, the wind ceased.
Peter certainly DID have faith!! When did he start sinking? When he stopped focusing on Jesus and started focusing on the storm and how strong the winds were.
We recently encountered the fourth occurrence of this phrase when the disciples thought Jesus was upset that they have no bread. Jesus reminded them that he just fed 2 massive groups of people with very little. He can provide for their needs.
Matthew 16:8 CSB
8 Aware of this, Jesus said, “You of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves that you do not have bread?
In all of those cases, Jesus demonstrated that he had power and authority over the PHYSICS of this world. They are amazing reminders to you and me that Jesus IS able to meet our needs.
he can provide for our daily needs so we do not need to worry
he can calm the storms in our lives so we need not be afraid
he can help us when we start sinking even if it seems impossible to us
he can take care of our needs because even when it seems impossible to us
By the time we get to today’s passage, we have had 4 encounters with this phrase, and each time it was to teach the disciples a lesson about who Jesus was. Remember, that was the focus on that section of the book.
THIS TIME, there are a few differences in the formula.
1. Jesus uses the phrase when confronting the spiritual battle.
2. Jesus tells his disciples that THEY will be able to do these things.
This is a time for them to learn and see that there is a bigger lesson here than the healing. It is about Jesus’ power over the spiritual. But it is also the time where Jesus is preparing his disciples for his departure, so keep that in mind.
So, what is the lesson Jesus wanted his disciples to learn?
Hold that question, we will come back to it.

So, let’s talk about faith a little bit.

Our faith grows with experience. This is true whether we are talking about faith in God or anything else.
How many of you have been rock climbing, repelling, skydiving? The first time you have to trust that equipment with your life it is a tough thing! However, the more you do it the more you trust the equipment. You are still placing your faith in that equipment, it just gets easier with experience.
How many of you sat in your chair this morning and had faith that it would hold you? Why? Because past experience informs you that the chairs are trustworthy - at least these are ;)
Now, let’s think about the experiences of the disciples prior to this encounter.
The disciples had acted in faith many times before this. This is especially true with physical needs like feeding the masses. We should also note that this was NOT the first time the disciples had been asked to cast our demons in Jesus’ absence! They had done this before!
Previously, Jesus sent out 72 disciples to ...
Luke 10:17–20 CSB
17 The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.” 18 He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like lightning. 19 Look, I have given you the authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy; nothing at all will harm you. 20 However, don’t rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Before that, he sent out the 12 in pairs....
Mark 6:7–13 CSB
7 He summoned the Twelve and began to send them out in pairs and gave them authority over unclean spirits. 8 He instructed them to take nothing for the road except a staff—no bread, no traveling bag, no money in their belts, 9 but to wear sandals and not put on an extra shirt. 10 He said to them, “Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that place. 11 If any place does not welcome you or listen to you, when you leave there, shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” 12 So they went out and preached that people should repent. 13 They drove out many demons, anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.
They had been given authority, AND they had previously cast out demons. MANY demons! In both those cases Jesus was not physically present with the group, so proximity was not an issue.
I have a feeling that disciples did not doubt that they could cast out demons.
Even the disciples asking Jesus “why couldn’t we cast out the demon” leaves the air ringing with the resounding expectation that they believed they could!
Because of these things I have a hard time understanding this passage as “you just need to believe harder!”.
CONCLUSION -> there must be more to faith than sheer belief or willpower. PERHAPS we do not have a full understanding of what faith really is?

Ponder this further:

The MAN had faith that Jesus could heal - that is why he came to Jesus. So why was the boy not just healed from that? If healing is simply a matter of belief, why did ANY of the people in the NT need to come to Jesus?
Matthew’s account is quite abbreviated. Mark has much more to share. I want us to flip over to Mark’s account of this story to help us understand this idea of faith even more.
Mark 9:14–27 CSB
14 When they came to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and scribes disputing with them. 15 When the whole crowd saw him, they were amazed and ran to greet him. 16 He asked them, “What are you arguing with them about?” 17 Someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you. He has a spirit that makes him unable to speak. 18 Whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive it out, but they couldn’t.” 19 He replied to them, “You unbelieving generation, how long will I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring him to me.” 20 So they brought the boy to him. When the spirit saw him, it immediately threw the boy into convulsions. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth. 21 “How long has this been happening to him?” Jesus asked his father. “From childhood,” he said. 22 “And many times it has thrown him into fire or water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 23 Jesus said to him, “ ‘If you can’? Everything is possible for the one who believes.” 24 Immediately the father of the boy cried out, “I do believe; help my unbelief!” 25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was quickly gathering, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you: Come out of him and never enter him again.” 26 Then it came out, shrieking and throwing him into terrible convulsions. The boy became like a corpse, so that many said, “He’s dead.” 27 But Jesus, taking him by the hand, raised him, and he stood up.
There are some differences between Mark’s account and Matthews:
the scribes are there
There is a dispute going on
we have more details about the demon and what it does to the boy
the word “heal” is not mentioned at all
Another BIG difference is the conversation Jesus has with the father of the demon possessed boy. The father says, “But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.
The man, of course, was referring to the physical and temporary. Help us in this life to not live with such a burden! Jesus came to heal the eternal, spiritual burden of every human, but the man did not see that.
Jesus’ answer is one we put on coffee mugs:
“Everything is possible for the one who believes”.
However, I think someone should make a mug with the father’s reply, because I think it embraces the tension that you and I have with our own faith: “I do believe; help my unbelief!”
Again, in spite of the man’s unbelief, Jesus healed his son. So, was the teaching really about the matter of faith as it pertains to healing? Was the faith of the man greater than that of the disciples? Is that the lesson here? Of course not! They have acknowledged him as the Messiah and committed their lives to following him and learning from him.
There is yet one other REAL BIG difference I want to focus on this morning is the end of the passage, which we have not read yet:
Mark 9:28–29 CSB
28 After he had gone into the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” 29 And he told them, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer.”
Can any of you point out to me, in either gospel account, where Jesus prayed to cast out the demon?
Jesus did not pray at that moment that we know of. It is not mentioned in any of the 3 gospels that record this event. He commanded the spirit to come out. That is much different than prayer! Yet Jesus said it takes prayer to accomplish the healing work of God.

REWIND: what just took place prior to this incident?

We started our passages with Jesus coming down from the mountain, but if we go back to the beginning of that section when they were going UP the mountain, we read this:
Luke 9:28–29 CSB
28 About eight days after this conversation, he took along Peter, John, and James and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.
Jesus went up the mountain to do what? PRAY. So, Jesus DID pray, but we do not know what he prayed about or for, we just know that the result was his glorification in front of the disciples after which he has this encounter with the crowds.

The context

When we look at the context of Matthew’s gospel, we can see that there is a bigger lesson here.
---
Jesus was on the mountain praying about the events to come - in obedience to the Father’s will.
Jesus rebuked Peter for thinking of the desires of man and not the desires of God.
---
A crooked and perverse generation is one that seeks its own desires and gods and not Yahweh (Deut 32)
The contrast of that is a person who exercises faith and follows the straight path.
---
It appears that the overarching lesson is that:
our beliefs and actions need to be aligned with God’s will and purpose.

The dichotomy

Matthew said we need faith the size of a small mustard seed. Mark says it takes prayer.
⚡ put both verses on the screen together.
WE have this seemingly odd dichotomy of prayer and faith, but they are more like two parts of a whole than they are two different ideas.
I think we often struggle with comprehending concepts like faith because our desire is to over simplify them. We want a 3 word definition, not a book full of illustrations. Yet one of the greatest lessons on faith is found in the book of Hebrews which basically says that you can understand faith by reading the stories found in the Law & Prophets.
From Hebrews we have this other famous verse:
Hebrews 11:6 CSB
6 Now without faith it is impossible to please God, since the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
One component of faith is believing IN God. Obviously the disciples did this - they recognized Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God. So they got that part.
The second part of 11:6 is to believe that he rewards the ones who DILIGENTLY SEEK HIM. Perhaps this is where the disciples failed? Perhaps they, like Peter, were seeking the things of man and not the things of God?
“Why couldn’t WE cast out the demon”?
If they had been previously given authority to do so, then it could mean that either
a) They were not seeking God in their motives for doing it, or
b) God did not want it to happen through them, at that time.
When Jesus sent out the disciples in the past he commanded them what to do, and the did it and were successful. In this passage we have not clear command from Jesus - the disciples just try, and fail. Was it because that was not God’s will for that moment or situation? By acting without seeking God’s direction they failed.
So back to our original struggle: What did Jesus mean when he said:
Matthew 17:20 CSB
20 “Because of your little faith,” he told them. “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
or
Mark 9:23 CSB
23 Jesus said to him, “ ‘If you can’? Everything is possible for the one who believes.”
Mark puts the positive spin “everything is possible” and Matthew the double-negative “nothing is impossible” - for the one who believes.
Apparently, what the disciples lacked was a dependence upon Yahweh. Jesus had just gone up on the mountain for at least a few days to be in prayer. Perhaps this was meant to teach the disciples that they would need to be in prayer for the events that were about to come up or they would not be able to overcome? At the same time, they had to believe that the words of Jesus were true even if they did not understand them and even when their circumstances will make them doubt - like when he will be killed.
Matthew 3. Accomplishing the Impossible

While faith in one sense is trusting God to do great things in our lives, it is even more a total dependence and reliance on God accompanied by a dedication to live by his will and purposes. As in John 14:12–14, power in prayer is prayer “in [his] name,” i.e., in union with Christ’s person and purpose.

The disciples, including you and me, were being taught that just because we have faith in God, we should not act out of pure ambition nor out of our own will - we must be in prayerful dependence upon God for what we ask and do “in his name” is what will be accomplished.
This is not about having enough faith to perform miracles. This is about the reality that spiritual battles are only won through faith in accordance with God’s will.
I can say that I certainly empathize with the disciples. I believe in Jesus, I believe God is powerful, more powerful than anything we can face! I believe God has given me authority as his child and that we wants me to do things that will bring honor to him. However, I too, have often failed because my good intentions lacked God’s direction or my own arrogance took center stage over God’s glory. Sometime it is hard for me to pray, and to wait.
God can and does do the miraculous - even today! However:
It is God’s decision as to whether or not he will act ( your faith is not greater than God’s will).
God wants us to have faith that is in alignment with his will.
If this passage is simply about “name-it and claim-it” kinda faith, then there would be no more war, sickness or death. All people everywhere would be saved and sin would be eradicated.
While those things ARE the will of the Father, the time for that has not yet come. So while we are in this broken world, we must learn to trust God not just for the healing and the change, but for the timing and the purpose.
So I pray. I pray for healing and believe God can and does heal. Then it is in God’s hands. And I realize that my little bit of faith is enough if God has decided it is so.
So I pray for people to come to know Jesus and I believe they will. Then it is in God’s hands. I cannot make people come to him, but if God wills they will come to know him.
What are the mountains in your life right now? Finances? Retirement? Health issues? Relationships? Addiction? There is never a doubt that God can move those mountains. Let me remind you he is greater than all of that. Instead, let me encourage you to trust him enough, have enough faith in HIM, to seek him first in these areas and in your life and see what he can do:
Matthew 6:33 CSB
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.
Obstacles that are bigger than us are removed by someone greater than us - but the goal should not simply be our relief, our comfort, or our growth - the goal should be God’s glory.
So trust God. Seek God. Fully rely of God. Watch what he can do! He may just move the mountain in your heart to help you know him better.
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