I wrote down several passages today
that caught my attention. I've been reading through different books
of the New Testament over the last few months in the Greek text. (As
to why I've been doing this, the truth is that it's been long in
coming. I started learning Greek when I was fifteen, and now, twenty
three years later, I'm at a point where English translations begin to
really bug me and I find myself crossing out the words in italics in
my English Bible which I know really shouldn't be there. I then asked
myself “the” question, “why, if I know the original well enough
am I still bothering with a middleman's work, however scholarly and
well done?” So, I quit making excuses and just took the plunge.
Besides this, it makes my reading slow down enough to where I can
actually take the time to think and meditate on what I read
devotionally.) The latest book I've been reading through has been
Matthew, although the truth is that I cheated a little. I started in
Matthew five, rather than Matthew one, because I really wanted to
jump to the meat of what Jesus taught.
The thing that caught my eye this time,
and that I've been pondering now for some time is Jesus' insistence
that if we have even the smallest size of faith we can order
mountains, trees, and shrubbery to do the most unnatural things, and
they will obey. The reason why it struck me this time is that I
realized today that Matthew records Jesus as saying it more than once
in his gospel. For some reason, I kept thinking the only repetitions
of this were in between Gospels, and were of the same event. They are
not. I have thought, more and more over the years, that anything the
Gospel writers took pains to record more than once was an important
enough part of His teaching that He said it regularly. In Matthew,
the two occurrences which stuck out to me are:
He
said to them, “Because
of your unbelief. For most certainly I tell you, if you have faith as
a grain of mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, ‘Move from
here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible
for you.” (Matthew 17:20, WEB)
Jesus
answered them, “Most certainly I tell you, if you have faith, and
don’t doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree,
but even if you told this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the
sea,’ it would be done. All things, whatever you ask in prayer,
believing, you will receive.” (Matthew
21-21-22, WEB)
I
then started looking up other similar passages in John's writings,
and also in James, that had stuck out to me:
“You
didn’t choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you
should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that
whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to
you.” (John 15:16, WEB)
“Most
certainly I tell you, whatever you may ask of the Father in my name,
he will give it to you.” (John 16:23b, WEB)
“But
if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all
liberally and without reproach; and it will be given to him. But let
him ask in faith, without any doubting, for he who doubts is like a
wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed. For let that man not
think that he will receive anything from the Lord He is a
double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” (James 1:5-8, WEB)
“This
is the boldness which we have toward him, that, if we ask anything
according to his will, he listens to us. And if we know that he
listens to us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions
which we have asked of him.” (1 John 5:14-15, WEB)
I
have been trying to understand these passages more, especially in
reference to my own prayers and my own faith, or lack thereof. Jesus
and His immediate disciples were insistent on this point and so it
should not be taken lightly, and neither should the power it
represents be. At the same time, I and many others know from
experience that God does not always give us what we ask for when we
ask for it. I believe that there are many reasons for this. More
often than not, it's because what we ask for isn't in our best
interests as He sees it. The closer we draw to Him, the better able
we are to sense this in our requests through Grace and the Holy
Spirit. But because of this, there always exists the element of
doubt, even if it is just, “I am asking for this, but what if God
doesn't think it's the best thing for me?”
In
my previous Ramble I explored the nature of Sacrament and the
relationship of God's uncreated energies to faith in Jesus Christ. In
the same way, according to these passages, our
requests in prayer, according to Jesus, are directly related to our
faith in Him and belief that He will do as we ask. According
to the Apostle John, there is the added stipulation that it be asked
according to His will. And according to James the Elder, there can be
no doubting that God will grant what is asked, otherwise the person
asking shouldn't expect anything to happen because he really doesn't
expect anything to happen to begin with.
So,
as I have been meditating on this, it comes back to what I was saying
previously. The transforming, uncreated energies of God are made
active in direct proportion to our faith in Christ, as is also the
movement of God for which we ask through prayer. To round this out, I
will add that the charismata are likely made active and empowered in
direct proportion to our faith in Christ as well.
So
then, how do we approach this? Faith isn't faith unless it produces
action. As I have said many times, you will always act on what you
truly believe. Whether or not that's what you say you believe remains
to be seen by what you do. So we must approach prayer in the same way
we must approach every other aspect of our transforming relationship
with God through Jesus Christ, by Grace through this kind of genuine
faith. The
faith which precedes the actions of faith.
This
is why St. Peter began to sink beneath the waves when he took his
eyes off of Jesus. He started believing something else besides the
fact that through Jesus he could walk on the stormy water. I think
this is also the problem in my own life. I began to look at the
storms raging around me, and began to believe more that they would
sink me, rather than believing that Jesus would hold me up regardless
of the storms. Like St. Peter, I cried out “Lord, save me!” And
like St. Peter, Jesus gently rebuked me, grabbing my hand and calling
me, “little-faith.” While at the same time letting me know that
He was still there and wasn't going to let me sink. We still haven't
made it back to the boat yet, to carry the analogy further, but we're
on the way.
In
the ancient church, there are records of healings, exorcisms, and
astounding miracles for centuries after Jesus ascended. Many of them
were performed through the clergy, but many of them were also
demonstrated through the laity as well and were commonplace among the
church for centuries, because of their faith. At one time, exorcisms
were the routine office of the laity, not the priests or bishops, and
could be performed on the fly without preparation. This was the level
of faith and discipleship which the church maintained at one time. It
is striking that they ceased to be commonplace in proportion to the
enculturation of the Christian faith among the people. When it became
trendy and popular to be “Christian”, the true signs of a
disciple were relegated to those “special Saints.”
I
am reminded of a key line from the movie Prince
of Egypt,
“Believe, and you will see God's wonders.” The main reason why we
don't see them so commonplace among us now, I think should be
obvious. Jesus pretty much spelled it out.
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