The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” Luke 17:5 CSB
Having entered the New Year 2024 what is the biggest need you expect God to fulfil? We are at times ritualistic in making wishes to God only to forget them over the following days and months. Usually it’s the unfulfilled needs, wants and wishes of the previous year, which become our new year goals. If we are asked to make a list of expectations for the New Year, the list will be filled with tangibles like commodities which can make one wealthy and self-sufficient. We all like to present a Wishlist to God and then start chasing them. We improvise and plan to make things happening exactly as we wish. The cliché “better life” is defined based on one’s status and position, which usually changes and shifts its position much earlier or once they reach their desired point and state of life.
When
we read the gospel about the disciples, we find that their need was to have increased
faith. The kind of faith where you will need to have 100% dependence on God. You
don’t find a single prayer or request from the disciples for a better life,
enriched family life with a great social status, riches, or any other things
that is to do with this earthly life. In fact, we are all aware of the great
sacrifices each of the disciples made as martyrs. The greatest need of the
mission invaded them so deeply that they all became radicals and
revolutionaries.
The disciples were clear about the difference between the present life and the eternal life. The beautiful thought Paul reminded is as follows, “If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone.”. 1 Corinthians 15:19. Christian life is filled with cares of this present life. Today’s Churches are battling and trying to manage physical and economic well-being of their members by trying to build fellowships, address family issues, prayers for sickness, blessings for their business, prayer for job needs, counselling the wayward youths and so on. Enormous materialistic needs and brokenness is what the Church Pastors and leaders are firefighting to manage.
Rich Villodas says 'The disciples being with Jesus at one point finally understood and felt the dire need of having a good amount of faith. And therefore, requested Jesus to increase their faith. Sometimes I feel faith is overly used in Christendom without its right implications. Every individual puts his/her faith in some god and have stories of how he/she has been blessed. The non-Christians don’t always need a message from us to tell how God will bless them abundantly, as they assume their gods have already blessed them a lot. Unfortunately, we have failed to understand that this is not a blessing competition. Often, we confuse the gospel with the over usage of the word ‘blessing’. Increase of faith, was not used to request materialistic blessing but to be witnesses and carriers of the gospel. Jerry Bridges states, “In order to trust God, we must always view our adverse circumstances through the eyes of faith, not of sense. And just as the faith of salvation comes through hearing the message of the gospel, so the faith to trust God in adversity comes through the Word of God alone.”.
Jesus expressed His concern while He stated this, “… Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”. Luke 22:10-11 CSB. We are all street smart, functionally literate to be self-reliant, trusting our possessions and wide worldly knowledge. Only when things are out of our control do we find the need to approach God, worse through our favourite spiritual gurus of whom we are ardent followers. It is time to put 100% faith in Christ Jesus and demonstrate our responsibility towards the mission in this New Year. The author of Hebrews in his book 11:6 states “Now without faith it is impossible to please God, since the one who draws near to him much believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”. Let’s not be tempted with the usage of the word ‘reward’ here to some materialistic blessings. Faith is used in chapter 11 in a totally different connotation. We all love the first few verses of Chapter 11 and wilfully ignore the verses from 36-39 where it narrates incidents of people whose faith were approved “…but did not receive what was promised.” Do you have enough courage to accept this as faith and be prepared? May you find the need for increased faith as a dire need in this year 2024.
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