5700 Rudnick Ave. Woodland Hills, CA 91367 (818) 346-6968 Home > Resources > Prayer Resources > If you have Faith the Size of a Mustard Seed PRAYER RESOURCES   IF YOU HAVE FAITH THE SIZE OF A MUSTARD SEED Maxie Dunnam Matthew 17:20:   If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.   Both Mark (11:23) and Luke (17:5-6) record similar sayings of Jesus about “faith the size of a mustard seed.” This word is as expansive and extravagant as the one we considered in our last insert: “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”   Obviously, Jesus is emphasizing faith. Faith is one of the chief elements required to mobilize the answer to our prayers. The New Testament is filled with this emphasis of Jesus.   Matthew 9:22   Your faith has made you well.   Matthew 15:28   Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish   Mark 5:34   Daughter, your faith as made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.   Mark 10:52:   Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.   Luke 7:50:   And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”   On one occasion we hear the disciples asking Jesus why their prayers had been ineffective, and Jesus says plainly, “Because of your little faith” (Matt. 17:20). Jesus attributed the failure of his power in his own country to the people’s unbelief (Matt. 13:58). Here is a rather startling thought to consider: Jesus put emphasis upon our faith as the condition of appropriating god’s love and power God’s love and power are always there unconditionally, but faith receives them and put s them to work.   Here is the emphasis in his boldest expression. “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” Concede, if you wish, that Jesus was speaking poetically as he often did, and that moving of a mountain was not to be taken literally. Even so, the truth is there. I like the way Lewis Maclaclan put it.   If we understood the mountains to be mountains of difficulty or of temptation, or barriers to liberty, this striking figure of speech must be allowed its due significance. At the least Jesus is saying that very great hindrances can be removed by faith, that faith is a power that can take up quite insurmountable obstacles and lift them from our path, that it can change the whole landscape for us, that it can make possible what looks impossible. If this is a metaphor it is a big metaphor, and must have a big meaning.   We need to remember, as we stated yesterday, that too often we impose more limits on prayer than God does. God’s answers to prayer are always better than our asking. God is always more ready to hear than we are to pray.   The bold promise of Jesus considered yesterday, along with this equally bold affirmation today, must be considered in the context of the total message of Jesus concerning our relationship to God. To be in a relationship of faith that results in answered prayer is to be willing to entrust ourselves to God, to give ourselves to God’s will for our lives, to put ourselves in God’s care, to follow God’s guidance in all the affairs of our lives.   When this kind of trusting faith is the soil out of which our praying grows, mountains will be moved.