MustardSeed

Jesus described the power of faith by saying that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we can speak to mountains and they will move. We can tell a tree to uproot itself, and it must obey, even to replant itself in the sea. Small mustard seed-sized faith grows into a mighty tree. It is so powerful, that nothing is impossible with faith, even if your faith is as tiny as the size of a mustard seed (Mt. 17:18-20, Lk. 17:6). There is faith in my life, but I know that what Jesus was talking about is on a whole different level. I wanted to look into it more closely.
Without faith, the scriptures say, it is impossible to please God. That pleasing faith is evidenced, according to the scripture, by our coming to Him, because we must believe He exists in order to do that. That faith is in seeking Him, because we believe He will reward us by allowing Himself to be found by us (Heb. 11:6). However, the Word also says that we cannot come to the Father except through the Son (Jn. 14:6), and we cannot come to the Son, except the Father draws us (Jn. 6:44-45, 65). So even this beginning faith spoken of in Hebrews 11, originates in the Father, and the Son, and not in ourselves. Every measure (fraction) of faith that man has, has been given to him by God (Rom. 12:3), so we do not generate any faith of ourselves for which we can feel pride.
The kind of faith I am looking for is found in the Father and Son.
There are two interesting examples in scripture where someone asked Jesus to "help my faith". One example was when Jesus taught His disciples about forgiveness without limits (Lk. 17:3-4). The disciples then said to the Lord, "Increase our faith." (v. 5). Even forgiveness requires faith it seems, and for the disciples, forgiveness in unlimited measure could not be accomplished by a natural kind of forgiveness found in the will of man. It would require something more. Therefore, they went to the Source of faith that they perceived, and asked the Lord to increase their faith.
In another example, a father came to Jesus because his son was being continually convulsed by a spirit which would throw the child into the water, or into the fire in order to destroy him. The disciples of Jesus were not able to cast out this spirit from the child (Mk. 9:17-27). The father asked Jesus, "...if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. Jesus said to him, If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes. Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" This father perceived that Jesus was the Source of faith. Jesus was able to not only cast the evil spirit out of the boy, but to raise the child up from a death-like condition afterward.
The father of this child must have struggled to find faith to begin with, to hope that his child would someday be healed of this demonic affliction. How much more of a challenge it would have been to find that faith within himself after he had seen that the disciples had failed.
How often do we ask Jesus to "increase our faith", or to "help our unbelief"? I know that I have not often heard this requested, nor prayed this for myself. Faith has become entangled in our pride. We consider faith to be something that we are supposed to have, develop, and exercise of our own strength and understanding. "Don't you have faith??", we might ask someone judgmentally. However, faith is something that pleases God because we come to Him seeking. Jesus said,
"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened."  Mt. 7:7-8
Jesus also emphatically told His listeners and disciples that the faith connected to this asking, must be attached to His name:
"And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it."  Jn. 14:13-14
Jesus' Hebrew listeners would have heard Him speak "Shem", referring to His name. This would have a powerful correlation with God for the Jews, to whom His Person is so holy, His name should not be uttered according to their tradition, but is referred to as "haShem", The Name. In Greek, "in - My - name" would be interpreted: (in) in the interior of some whole, within - (My) that which I possess, that which I have proceeding from me- (name) everything the thought or feeling of which is aroused in the mind by mentioning, hearing, remembering the name.
Sometimes, it seems that the phrase, "in Jesus' name", is tacked unto the end of our prayers almost by rote, but I think we end up cutting short the meaning and vital importance of Christ's instruction. The purpose of asking in His name, according to the verse from John 14, is so that the Father may glorified in His Son, not even by our prayers, but in the Person of His Son. The Person of Jesus, who IS our faith, who IS our hope, who is ever our intercessor before our Father, and is also the author and finisher of our faith, and prayer:
"...let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author (author, chief leader, pioneer, predecessor, example, beginning, origin, that by which anything begins, to be the first to do anything) and finisher (perfector, one who has in his own person raised faith to its perfection and so set before us the highest example of faith; to make perfect, complete, carry through completely, to accomplish, to add what is yet wanting in order to render a thing full, to be found perfect, consecrate, wanting nothing necessary to completeness, full grown, mature) of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."  Heb. 12:1-2
One of the words used to mean "faith" is the Hebrew word aman. Aman includes the meaning "to go to the right hand". Jesus is positioned in the place of faith.
I think that in teaching His disciples about faith the size of a mustard seed, He was telling them that something that powerful, even in that tiniest amount, is not something that comes from man, but to seek it from where it is generated- Himself. In Gal. 2:20 (KJV) Paul speaks about the life he lives now in the flesh as he is crucified with Christ, "I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." It is not his own faith that fills Paul's life, but the faith of Christ. This is the kind of faith that Jesus expected in His disciples - His own.
Romans 10:17 says, "So then faith comes by (ek-out of, from, proceeds, denotes origin, the point whence action or motion proceeds) hearing, and hearing by the word (rhema- uttered by a living voice, spoken word, speech) of God."
The end result, faith, in the above verse comes from the origin or source: God Himself, and His Son, Who is the Word of God.
Even the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father in His Son's name (Jn. 14:26). We are believing in a much needed reviving, restoring, renewing move of the Holy Spirit in these times. The faith for that revival is expressed through our prayers, but the source, or origins of both the faith, and the sending of the Holy Spirit, is in the Son's name.
From what I have found, the faith that I am seeking is not something I can will or decide or create into my life. It is not an act of man, but of the Father, and Son. Considering how powerful faith is, even in the tiniest amount, this shouldn't come as a surprise to me. Now, I can go directly to the Source, and start believing through HIS faith, which is perfect and complete. By this kind of faith, indeed all things are possible.

Our Father has revealed the Source of miraculous faith, even the size of a mustard seed.