Not Only by Faith

Scripture:
"And he says to them, Because of your unbelief; for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard [seed], ye shall say to this mountain, Be transported hence there, and it shall transport itself; and nothing shall be impossible to you." (Matthew 17:20)

As you can tell this theme is one that is still on my heart and I am continually asking the Holy Spirit of God to reveal to me God's will in the Word of God so that I can realize all that God has for me. With this said, today I came to understand something that seems reasonable to me that I am going to share today.

The scriptures tell us that if we have the faith of a mustard seed we can move mountains but it is because of our unbelief we can not do these things. Now up until today, I have been thinking unbelief was the opposite of faith. That is if I have less faith I have more unbelief. But if I have only a little bit of faith I can move a mountain, that it would seem to me that since this scripture says it is my unbelief that prevents my being able to move a mountain and I think that I do have at least a little bit of faith, that maybe it is all the things that I have believed or have been raised to believe that are contrary to faith that is preventing me from moving a mountain.

For example, I know that I have the faith in Jesus Christ that he died for my sins and that someday I will be with Him heaven. Is the faith to believe in Jesus less then the faith of a mustard seed? I have the faith to believe that my friend Cal had his hand miraculously restored after being crushed and the skin being ripped off like a glove. Is this such a small amount of faith? No, it seems to me that it would take a lot of faith to both believe in Jesus and believe that your friend's hand was miraculously healed. So why can't I move mountains?

I heard today from a preacher on the Internet that lack of faith and unbelief are two different things. That is that faith and belief are not the same things. Basically I am understanding that faith is something that God gave us to be able to believe and belief is something that we continue to do and grow in, in our walk with Christ. This would mean that even if I had the faith of a mustard seed and I did not see mountains move, it would be because my unbelief is so strong it "counters" the little faith I have.

Last night I was up half the night with my grandson because in the beginning of the week he went swimming in the swimming pool I put up this past weekend. Now last year we had numerous occasions where he got swimmers ear and was in pain for a couple of days each time. This happened again this week. Though he was told not to go in and was warned about not getting his ear wet, he is only 5, he jumped in when no one was watching, he got swimmer's ear this week and we have been caring for him all week, doctor's, antibiotic, children's motrin, etc.

Well last night it was me who was up with him and in the middle of the night he started crying again but he did not want to take his medicine. Being half asleep and having pain in his hear, I held him close and said, "I can't make it better, this medicine will take the pain away". Now you might be saying, "why didn't you pray?". But I did, I prayed for him over and over, asking for God's healing hand, praying that my grandson was hurting, speaking positively. His ear is still hurting and I have not stopped praying. So what is wrong? I don't think it is due to my lack of faith, I think it is due to all my years of conditioning in the belief that only medicine will help. Years of "trusting" in one way of healing and now, while studying the Word, seeing that God wants us well because He healed all the sick that came to him.

I have been listening to Andrew Wommack and he is in the middle of a six week series of messages called, "God Wants You Well". I share this just in case you are interested in learning more about what I am learning. The URL is http://www.awmi.net/tv/2008/week14

Request:
That Seth would not only be healed from the swimmer's ear but that the canal in is ear would be "reformed" so that he does not get swimmer's ear ever again.

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, your Word tells us that if we have the faith of a mustard seed we can move mountains, but I can't move mountains yet. I can only understand that my unbelief is so strong that I bring to no avail the faith you gave to me. With that in mind Lord, help cleanse us from our beliefs in other things besides you, to truly believe what your Word says and counter, the unbeliefs that we have learned also with you Word.