Day 9

Today’s Reading: Matthew 9

Matthew 9 is a chapter that is spilling over with healing and faith. A paralyzed man is brought to Jesus by his friends in verse 2 and Jesus sees the faith of the friends and the paralyzed man walks. A woman with a twelve-year disease is free in an instant. Jesus says to her, “Your faith has made you well” (verse 22). Two blind men finally see through their eyes after Jesus said to them, “It shall be done to you according to your faith” (verse 29).

Faith and healing. Those two things are inseparable.

So many people today need healing in their bodies. It seems that we want our healing, but we have never checked our faith.

We probably should get a handle on faith. This small word is huge. Let’s see if we can unpack it in the next few minutes.

Faith has to be a huge thing, if in fact:

• It’s how we get saved
• It’s how people get healed
• It’s how we please God
• It’s how we walk the Christian life—even a little still does big things
• It’s what makes prayer powerful

Almost everything we do as a Christian involves faith. So I think we better get a handle on it and realize what it is. Faith . . .

• honors God and God honors faith.
• cashes God’s checks.
• won’t get you everything you want, but it will get you everything that God wants you to have.

Only two times does the Bible devote an entire chapter to one topic. The first is love in 1 Corinthians 13. The second is what we are discussing today—faith, which we find in Hebrews 11. Though we aren’t there yet in our 260 journey, today’s reading helps us understand the power of faith.

As we see in Matthew 9, God takes faith very seriously. As I’ve heard it said, “Faith is like WiFi. It’s invisible but it has the power to connect you to what you need!” 

You exercise faith everyday. Let’s take one example of the doctor and the pharmacist. You go to a doctor whose name you cannot pronounce and whose degrees you have never verified. He gives you a prescription you cannot read. You take it to a pharmacist you have never met. He gives you a chemical compound you do not understand. Then you go home and take the pill according to the instructions on the bottle. All in trusting, sincere faith.

When it comes to your spiritual life, you need faith to get over the hurdle of determining that God exists. You use faith for the next hurdle: Who is this God you gave your life to? Then you face another hurdle that takes faith—fighting the devil as he tries to mess you up on the greatness of God. Why?

Because biblical faith always depends upon its object.

You can have little faith in thick ice and still survive; you can have great faith with thin ice and drown—it’s the object that is the issue. The Bible never says to believe only; it says to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible never says to have faith only; it says to “have faith in God” (Mark 11:22).

So if the God you put your faith in is misconstrued, then so is your faith. The best way to grow faith is to do as Peter tells us to, “in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). And the best place to start that growth, in order to know God, is through reading and studying the Word of God.

The Bible is God’s bio. The more we read it, the more our faith strengthens.

Faith needs an object. The object—the bulls eye—of our faith is God and who He is.

Your faith is only as great as the God you believe in. He must be the object of your faith. Since God does not change, your faith can still be strong in tough times. You don’t need great faith, you need faith in a great God.

As Charles H. Spurgeon once said, “Oh, brethren, be great believers! Little faith will bring your souls to heaven, but great faith will bring heaven to you.”

If you grow, or feed, your faith through the Word of God and the knowledge of God, how does Satan attack your faith and try to squelch it? By messing up what you think about God. If you have faith in a small God, then you will have small faith.

How big is your God?

Take a page from this little guy . . .

A little boy was asked, “How many gods are there in the world?

“One God,” he replied.

“How do you know that?” said the skeptic.

“Because there is only room for One. Since heaven and earth can’t contain Him, how can anyone else fit?”

He is so right. “For our God is the best, far better than competing gods. Why, the skies—the entire cosmos!—can’t begin to contain him” (2 Chronicles 2:5-6, MSG).

Tell me what other God can fit, if the entire cosmos is already filled up—with the one true God, Jesus!

Where is your faith today?