How Can We Have Mountain Moving Faith?

Have you ever seen mountain moving faith in action?

What is the most important thing you are asking God to do in your life or someone else’s life right now?

When you hear the word faith, what comes to your mind automatically?

When I think of Mountain Moving faith, I think of a story that I was privileged to hear both sides of after it happened. Several years ago, we had the Gideons sharing at our church. One of my friends told me that he only had $20 left to his name, but God had pressed on his heart so deeply to give that last $20 to the Gideons, that he put it in the offering plate not knowing how he would survive until payday. That same night another friend of mine told me God had told her to give money to the Gideons as well, but she did not give. Later in the parking lot she felt so convicted for not giving that she didn’t want the money in her purse any longer so she threw it in the window of a truck in the parking lot. As my first friend opened his car door, he found the $20 sitting on his front seat. Now that wasn’t my mountain moving faith, but I benefitted from knowing how God specifically provided in that situation.

Matthew 17:20 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

20 And He *said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith [a]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 to you.

In this passage, Jesus had sent out his disciples and had given them His authority and power. They came back defeated because they could not pray healing into a young boy’s life. The boy suffered from epileptic fits. The scribes were taunting his disciples and they came back with their heads hung and embarrassed. Warren Weirsbe's Bible Commentary says that these were the 9 disciples that were left behind when Jesus took James, John and Peter to the mount for his transfiguration. These 9 may have been a little jealous or since they were away from Jesus, may have not been as disciplined in their prayer life as they had been when they were with the Lord. Whatever the cause, their spiritual strength had diminished, so their faith was weakened. They asked Jesus why they couldn’t heal the boy.

Matthew 17:20 The Message (MSG)

20 “Because you’re not yet taking God seriously,”

That phrase jumped off the page for me, especially dealing with the subject of faith, because I wonder if we really are taking God seriously. Do we really believe what God says in His word? Because if we really believe His word, then we would know without a doubt that we can do anything through Him if we take the time to build up our spiritual strength through prayer and studying scripture. If we don’t take the time it takes to have a strong faith, then we cannot expect to have the faith it takes to ask God to move mountains. Weisby says, “Faith like a mustard seed is living faith that is nurtured and caused to grow. Faith must be cultivated so that it grows and does even greater exploits for God”.

Faith is an action. It must be activated. God gives every person the faith to believe in who He is, but it is our choice to activate that faith. Some people choose not to activate it at all, purposely denying the truth that God puts in them. Some people activate the salvation faith, trusting in Him to save them from hell. But even fewer activate the living faith, the faith that allows God to take full control of their lives. We cannot simply say, "God give me faith" and not take any responsibility for our part in the work.

Faith is a gift, but we cannot just receive it, sit it on a shelf, and expect it to grow. Faith will only grow through our willingness to walk through circumstances that force us to activate it. We cannot activate it if we do not take time to build up our spiritual strength.

I saw a commercial the other day with a girl talking about how setting the mood to watch TV used to be, she’d have to go around and dim the lights and manually search the channels for the show she wanted to watch. She said, "It was so crazy." Now she said, "I can use my remote to dim the light and voice activate the show I want to watch." I sat there thinking, when did walking around your living room to dim lights become ‘crazy’? I believe that is where we are as a society. We want everything to be fast, quick, with little to no work on our side. Anything that we actually have to work long and hard for is considered ‘crazy’. And that has bled over into our spiritual lives. We have pushed back the kind of faith that moves mountains because of the effort it takes. We can not get to the place where we say to this mountain, "move" without work, taking time to feed our spiritual man.

My Sunday school teacher told us one time that God’s word is the same as food. We can’t expect to stay full by only eating once a week. We have to eat everyday to remain full. If we want to maintain mountain moving faith, so we can activate it when it is needed, we have to remain spiritually full. We also have to be willing to go through the trials it takes to grow that faith.

How can we have Mountain Moving Faith?

By staying Faithful to the One who moves them!