5 And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.
6 And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you, Luke 17:5-6.
1) According to the above verses faith is necessary to walk in the supernatural – even if it is only as a grain of mustard seed.
2) However, as a N.T believer the faith issue has been dealt with once and for all:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, FAITH, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. Gal. 5:22-23.
By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see. Acts 3:16
At the moment of our born again experience we received the faith of God. If you are born again you have the Spirit of God, and you have the same faith as God Himself (Gal. 2:20).
With that being said- if the amount of faith doesn’t matter and you already have recieved the faith you need, what’s the problem?
Jesus continues with a parable to explain what He meant with verse 5 and 6 by saying:
7 “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Calong now and sit down to eat’? 8 Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that ome you may eat and drink’?
The meaning is that the servant (a slave) obeys his master and does his duty. As the Master is in a higher authority than the servant, he uses/exercises his authority to accomplish the task needed. That is exactly as the Roman centurion did: And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it, Matthew 8:7-9.
If you understand your higher authority over sickness and disease in the same way as the master over the servant (Luke 17:7-8) and the Roman centurion over his soldiers (Matthew 8:9), then what’s left for you is to actually start exercising this authority over the problem and believing that it will obey. That’s what Jesus calls faith (Matthew 8:5-13, 10) . You have to develop this kind of attitude as the master and the Roman centurion had towards sickness and disease!
A biblical example of above written is to be found in Matthew 17:14-21, Mark 9:14-29, Luke 9:37-43. The reason why the apostles didn’t manage to heal the demonpossessed boy was because of this very thing. In their attempts they did not exercise their authority (Luke 10:19) as the Roman centurion and the master over his servant did, and Jesus called it out as unbelief. Matthew 17:14-21:
When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”
“You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” 18 Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.
Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”
He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.””
The parable continues:
9 Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”
Our duty in the context was defined in vers 6:
“And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.”
As a believer you are expected to live a supernatural life. You are supposed to see miracles, healing and wonders.
Summary:
1) God has given you everything you need to walk in the supernatural – that is faith.
2) If understanding this it is only for you to start to use and exercise your authority, as a master over his slave!
Understanding and using your authority in Christ, are the fundamental keys of divine healing.
Aly-Sam Botros
Been meditating on the verses regarding faith and “speaking to ____” a lot lately. Faith cannot be diluted (or polluted) with doubt and unbelief! I love your take on this though, with the master and servant (Luke 17:7-8). Will need to mediate on this for sure! God bless