For Such a Time As This: Great and Little Faith

Asa Mahan

3/10/2003

Much is said, by Jesus especially, about ‘great’ faith and ‘little’ faith.

‘Little faith’ (or unbelief) considers the difficulties to be overcome in the accomplishment of needed and required ends, and becomes appalled and doubtful in view of it all. Faith thinks of the power of Christ to do all that we need, and “exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,” and of His absolute fidelity to His Promises, and consequently, “rejoices in the hope of the glory of the Lord.”

Unbelief thinks of the vastness of our necessities, and of the absence of all visible means to meet them, and thus becomes “careful and troubled about many things.” Faith thinks of the wealth and resources of our Father in Heaven, and of His omnipresent “help in trouble,” and by “prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, makes known its requests unto God,” and as a consequence, is “kept by the peace of God, which passes all understanding.”

The language of unbelief is, “If You can do anything, help us, and have mercy on us.” The language of faith is, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean,” and, “Speak only the word and my servant will be healed.”

The one with little faith takes a feeble hold of the Love and Promises of Christ, and with doubting expectation approaches the Throne of Grace.” But faith magnifies the Love of Christ, and laying hold with a death-grasp upon the promised help, replies to every difficulty and seeming repulse with “Truth Lord, yet even the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

The doubtful, unbelieving one, receives rebuke when it obtains the blessing sought, while the one who believes receives both the blessing and the divine commendation, “O woman, great is your faith; be it done to you as you will.” “I am willing; be clean,” and, “Truly, I say to you, I have not found so great of faith, not even in Israel.”

Christ is most pleased with you and me when He sees in us this great faith which counts it a very small and easy thing for Him, with His infinite power and boundless love, grace, and resources, to meet all the necessities of creatures so small as we are, and which never doubts or questions His absolute fidelity to His Promises. The firmer our grasp on His plighted Word, the more ineffable is His delight in us, and the more deeply His heart moves towards us. Nothing will be impossible to us if our faith does not fail.

Faith counts nothing that concerns us as God’s sons and daughters as above the power or beneath the notice and care of our Heavenly Father… Unbelief opens its ear to the “prattle of infidelity” against the value of prayer and loses all confidence in regard to God’s control of physical events and in regards to all His Promises in respect to our temporal concerns. Faith, on the other hand, looks into “the perfect Law of Liberty” and continues to do so. Faith rests with absolute assurance upon the Testimony and Promise of the Author of the universe, regarding Him as better informed in respect to His relations to His own works than creatures of yesterday can be.

With God’s Promise to receive you, do not fear to let go of every hold and drop into His Everlasting Arms, however dark all but the naked Promise may appear. When you shall become thus trustful, you will enter into rest.

…When I meet with any such Truth, Promise, or Precept, I place myself before it, and abide in its presence until, through the Spirit, it sheds its full influence upon my mind. I read, for example, the following command of Christ, “Be perfect, therefore, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” I do not turn away from this precept, saying obedience to it is not expected of creatures. I read the prayer, on the other hand, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” and thus I understand clearly the meaning of the precept… So, when I read of Christ’s power to save, and the provisions and promises of His grace, I conclude that God is in earnest in such revelations and means what He says… I look to Him to “save me to the uttermost” as He is able to do, to render real in me, in all of their fullness, every one of the “exceeding great and precious promises,” and finally to do in me “far above all that I ask or imagine.”