Get a Bigger Box

By Pastor Jeff

Luke 17:1-6, ” Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him. And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.”

I find it very interesting that in the middle of a sermon on forgiveness that his disciples ask Jesus to “increase their faith”, but it is something that every one of us have asked at times. We like to think that we never have and we will never put God in a box, but in reality we all are guilty of doing just that. When it comes to faith we all are given a measure of it according to Romans 12:3. I thank God that it does not take a lot of faith to obtain salvation, all we have to do is obey Acts 2:38, ” Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

That can be a small box, now don’t believe that just because it’s a small box that it is of no value, can you think of something very valuable that comes in a very small box. Salvation is beyond any value we can place on it but once we have received salvation it is God’s desire for us to grow in faith in His word and in Him. The great thing is that Jesus wants us to  get a bigger box as well. In the two events of the multiplying of the fish and loaves we can see this. In the first one the disciples come to Jesus telling Him to send the people away because they could not provide enough food to feed them all, (Mark 6:32-43) and in the chapter 8 we see a similar event in which Jesus comes to them and asked the question to see if they had learned anything from the first event. I wish we would have seen this event occur third time for I’m sure the faith of the disciples would have been to the point that they would have just had the people seated with plates, forks and napkins.

We need to get bigger boxes or at the very least open the top so our faith can be expanded for whenever we believe that a situation is to big for God we are shutting Him in a box or putting God in smaller box. When we are not sure we can receive our healing, when we don’t believe He can help us in our provision, when we can’t shake an addiction, when we have family issues we are putting God in a box.

Natalie Grant has recently released a song that is very powerful called, “king of the World” and I encourage you to listen to it, for one verse says, “I try to put You in the box that I’ve designed” which really describes how we treat our faith in God. Let’s bust the box or at least imagine a box that contains the entire Universe, for its time for miracles to happen in your life that will transform your life forever, remember for in the beginning God just had to speak and it became, do you think His power has shrunk since then?

picture care of: youtube.com