Faith and Forgiveness

This morning I am continuing my reading from Luke 17 from a few days ago. I was digging a bit deeper into these verses - Luke 17:3-6 NIV

[3] "So watch yourselves.
“If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. [4] Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”

[5] The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”

[6] He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you."

This morning as I wasa rereading these verses, I realized that I might have been seeing them wrongly for years, specifically verse 6. Normally my thought on reading that verse has been that Jesus was rebuking them, or at least exasperated with them. After reading the same verses today, I just felt that the Lord was really trying to encourage the disciples.

Looking at Faith, I think that the Lord in discussing it, was always encouraging people in their faith, for faith is really based on their knowledge and experience of God, as well as being a gift from the Father. Faith is one of the things that is absolutely required in the Kingdom, and thus is highly treasured. So why would the Lord rebuke someone for not having faith.

There are several scriptures where He says they have little faith, and I have always read that as a rebuke. However after a quick rereading of all those passages, it appears that Jesus was instructing them in the ways of the Father, and essentially increasing their faith. I am now seeing this more as a diagnosis than rebuke. Its like observing someone hasn't learned to swim yet, and then giving them their first lesson. Diagnosing that they haven't learned to swim isn't meant to be a rebuke, but rather it is identifying the problem that needs to be fixed. In this case they need more faith to be able to extend forgiveness.

One of the commentaries by David Guzick that I read states that the mulberry bush and forgiveness in these verses are related. He says that the mulberry bush is extremely deep rooted, and that in this case the imagery chosen by Jesus was meant to demonstrate forgiveness of long held, deeply rooted things. These are the kinds of things that can hold us in bondage, and the Lord is saying through faith in Him, we can see those things uprooted and cast into the sea where they will never be able to take root again. That actually is very encouraging!

So let us allow the Lord to encourage us, to grow in our faith and knowledge of Him to such an extent that we can lay down our past, forgive those that have hurt us, and move forward in our relationships with Him.

Amen!