Just One Little Crumb

JUST ONE LITTLE CRUMB

By Pastor Jim May

I hear a lot of talk in these days about faith. Some say that you need to have great faith, and if you have great faith, you will have prosperity, health and the abundant life. That’s true to a point, but we don’t want to get into hyper-faith that believes you can force God into being a vending machine to give us whatever we want when we want. Others say that you need just a little faith, like the mustard seed, and that will be enough to move mountains. Well it’s kind of hard to argue that point much since they seem to be quoting the Bible. But if they are trying to tell me that my “mustard seed faith” means that I can just dabble in the Word of God and play around with serving the Lord, then I will have to disagree with them too.

The fact is that faith is necessary, and it is only by faith we can believe and serve the Lord. Let us never forget that God has given to every man a measure of faith. In effect I am convinced that all of us have all of the faith that we will ever need to fulfill the call of God upon our lives.

It’s not that we need more faith – we need to use the faith we have through trusting God and serving God. By doing that our faith is made stronger, much like a weightlifter is made stronger, not by creating muscle, but my developing muscle through resistance. So the question is never whether we have enough faith. Our prayer should not be that God should give us more faith, but that we will simply grow in the faith that He has already given.

In the passage of scripture that I want to read to you now we will see how that faith, even when it seems small in our eyes, is a powerful force that can move Heaven and earth. Great faith is not always shown through great works in the eyes of men.

Faith is that belief that things we cannot see or understand, will come to pass. Having faith is to be convinced that the will of God shall be done, no matter what others may say. It’s simply placing yourself in the hands of Jesus and being convinced in your heart that somehow everything; all things, will work out for your good according to His plan.

Mark 7:25-30, "For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet: The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs. And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs. And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter. And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed."

Here we see a picture of a mother who is concerned for her daughter. She was not a citizen of Israel but she had heard the news of a great teacher and prophet in Israel that had power to cast out demons and that’s all she needed to know. It’s amazing to think that a heathen woman, in a foreign land, had more faith in Jesus than the nation of Israel; God’s Chosen People.

Her daughter had an unclean spirit that no doubt would often manifest itself in the way her daughter talked and acted.

Today we can give the devil the easy way out by refusing to see that it is demonic activity in the lives of so many people. We try to remove any guilt of sin by calling it sickness. I believe that many of the problems faced by people today aren’t just physical ailments – they are spiritual ailments, brought on the possession and oppression of their spirit by the power of demonic activity. I don’t believe that demons are in everyone who isn’t saved, but I do believe that their lives are controlled to some degree by demonic activity.

Have you ever heard of a “disease” called Tourette Syndrome? I’m no medical doctor or psychologist, but I am a minister of the gospel and I am convinced that anyone, young or old, who falls out with muscle contortions and screaming obscenities is definitely demon controlled. I believe that what medicines and the counsel of men cannot do, the power of the Holy Spirit and the Blood of Jesus can do! If that person gets saved the Tourette Syndrome will be gone.