Increase Our Faith! (Luke 17:5)

 


Friday, March 28, 2025


Psalm 71

Genesis 49:22-50:6

Luke 17:1-19


Increase Our Faith! (Luke 17:5)


Something that may have gone past without you noticing as you read the Gospel of Luke (as it has myself) is how Jesus is now being referred to as “the Lord”. There doesn’t seem to be a specific point at which St Luke switches from calling him Jesus to calling him Lord; it is more of a gradual change. But isn’t it an interesting move, showing how good of a writer he is: the book began with St Luke the scholarly historian, looking to present an ordered account of the things which have happened. Then, as Christ does more and teaches more, the image of this Jesus we are learning about begins to come into clearer focus, until finally St Luke just comes out with it: Jesus is Lord.


We have been working through this gospel for awhile now. And we have noticed that, while it contains collections of different events, these events all seem to follow general themes. Bubbling away in the background is this vague sense of excitement: something incredible happened, and as we learn more of what this something incredible is, we find ourselves wanting even more.


Yesterday we were given this image of hordes of people pressing into the kingdom of God, leaving behind the boring, scoffing, lovers of money. Today, Jesus adds to that image with the terrifying prospect of tripping people over as they surge into the kingdom. The excitement at this kingdom, and the excitement of getting into it, is raising to a fever pitch, and the apostles burst out “Lord, increase our faith! Give us whatever we need to get into the kingdom!”


Of course the Lord will give us whatever we ask for in line with the Father’s will, and of course the Father’s will is that we have whatever is best for us in any given situation. And so Jesus just adds to their excitement: “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”


The kingdom of God is to be pressed, pushed, forced into. Make sure that is where you are going! Can you sense the joyful anticipation of being raised from death into eternal life? Pray that Jesus would bring you there, because if you ask, then of course he will; and this just makes everything that much more exciting.


What are you looking forward to? Does the fact that the Lord is guiding your steps excite you about your future?


Lord, you are patient and generous with even the chief of sinners: increase our faith, and give us the grace to press forward joyfully into the future you have prepared for us.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Monday, July 25, 2022

  Monday, July 25, 2022 Psalm 62; 63 Hosea 1 Romans 4:1-12 He only is my rock and my salvation: my strong tower, so that I shall not be moved. The prophecies of Hosea are rich with vivid imagery. Look at these names: firstly, “Hosea” means “salvation”. So too do the names Joshua and Jesus. Then Hosea has three children: “God scatters”, “Not pitied”, and “Not my people”. This is because the children are part of the marriage between Hosea and Gomer, which is an image God is showing to the nation. It is to our profit that God has used real-life events to communicate spiritual imagery and divine truths. We find it very easy to understand our relationship with God as being a faithful wife to a loving husband. We can reconcile this message with what Paul has to teach us today in Romans. He makes the very important observation that Abraham was given God's righteousness as a result of his faith before, not after, his circumcision. Again, this is God using real-life events...
Read more

The God of Those Who Repent (The Prayer of Manasseh 13)

Image
  Thursday, August 29, 2024 Psalm 145 The Prayer Of Manasseh Romans 15:22-33 Observance: Beheading of John the Baptist The God of Those Who Repent (The Prayer of Manasseh 13) This morning we have a passage from a book that is not inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Prayer of Manasseh is included in what the church calls the “apocrypha”, which is a set of written works that sit alongside the Bible. We read them for example of life and instruction of manners, but do not apply them to establish any doctrine, according to the sixth Article of Religion at the back of our prayer book. Nonetheless, we did just yesterday read about King Manasseh and his wild ride of a life journey. It must have been quite a change of character he went through: first he rebelled both against his father and God, replacing true worship with devil worship. Then he was captured by the Assyrians in a most undignified manner, in chains and with a hook through his nose. During this ...
Read more

Friday, March 3, 2023

  Friday, March 3, 2023 Psalm 9 Genesis 42:1-17 Luke 12:22-34 “ Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” When the Bible teaches us that Jesus has freed us from slavery, what kind of slavery is it talking about? Christians like William Wilberforce read it to mean freedom from chattel slavery, and was instrumental in leading Britain to release their slaves. God frequently is at pains to remind the Jews that He freed them from slavery in Egypt – again, chattel slavery. There is another kind of slavery at work here in Australia. Yes, we still have chattel slaves in the traditional and literal sense, and there are groups around doing God’s work in exposing their evil masters and freeing those slaves. But the kind of slavery relevant to Jesus’ words this morning is in our enslavement to our own future. The current political battle over tax rates on superannuation accounts is the most recent example. We hav...
Read more