Luke 17: 5-10

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”

He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.

“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, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 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.’”

I read this scripture recently and gained a new view of faith in regard to our relationship with God. He is not comparing us to servants and commanding us punitively to just have faith, it is our duty. No, in this parable, Jesus is demonstrating a drastic comparison of the lowest, bare-minimum baseline requirement for being in a relationship with the Father. We must have faith.

Why should we have faith? So we can receive our healing? Our forgiveness? Our deliverance or our answered prayers? No. None of these reasons, really. First and foremost, we should have faith because of God Himself. He is worthy of our faith. His very personality, the goodness and divine power, and love that live in Him are worthy to be honored by our faith. As an act of worship and respect, reverence and praise, the Lord shall have our faith. 

His character is deserving. The scripture in Hebrews 11:6 states, "But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." Faith is mandated as part of our responsibility to live in right relationship with the Lord. 

When we have faith in the full and pure generosity and goodwill of God toward us, our children and our family, He rewards us. That's just who God is. Faith is a big deal in His eyes and He desires it from us because he loves us and hopes that we can know the fullness of His love and believe in it wholeheartedly. And as we step into faith in a good God and see who He truly is, He turns around and amazes us with glorious rewards on earth as it is in heaven: a healed child.