No Need For A Leap Of Faith

Simple Faith or Belief in God is a requirement for a lifestyle of trusting in Him through Christ and His Holy Spirit, not a leap of faith. Scripture supports this by saying, "without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." (Heb. 11:6) The amount of faith controls one's mountains or activity within the issues of life but honesty about everything, especially your faith-level, before God seems to go a long way also. 

In Mark 9 we read of an encounter where a father brings his son, first to The Disciples for healing, then to Jesus because the Disciples could not impart the healing required. The son had an impure spirit within him that made him deaf and mute since childhood and would often toss him to the ground in seizures.

Interestingly, Matthew 17:14-20 records this same event but with different highlights. Matthew observed this story with the lesson being mainly about the Disciples lack of faith. In fact, Jesus mentions lack of faith early on in the passage when He refers to the entire "unbelieving and perverse generation", then proceeds to speak to the Disciples concerning the size of their faith.

Meanwhile, over in Mark 9:14-29, the encounter deals briefly with the Disciples inability to impart healing to the boy but then moves quickly to the view of the father and his struggle with his measure of belief. So, lack of belief is addressed in both accounts, but I find it interesting that in this rendering, Christ only acted at the rushing of an oncoming crowd - "when Jesus saw a crowd running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. 'You deaf and mute spirit. I command you come out of him and never enter him again'". 

Would Jesus have healed the boy if the crowd had not rushed the scene? The father's request for help in unbelief does not seem like the trigger or compulsion for Christ's healing. In between verses 24 and 25 of this passage I get the impression that there might have been a lesson or additional teaching that Jesus would have administered but did not because of the oncoming crowd. In any case, Christ healed the boy, explained the healing to the Disciples and then promptly left the area.

So, what does it mean to believe? The original word used many times in the New Testament for believe was pisteuo (pist-yoo-o), meaning to entrust, commit, have faith in. Jesus entered a generation that was lacking in belief in a huge way. As mentioned before, He even told the Disciples their lack of faith did not even measure up to the analogy of having and using one of the smallest, if not the smallest, seeds known to humans - the mustard seed.

The root word of pisteuo is pistis which means one under persuasion and/or moral conviction. Belief comes with proofs. Paul said a few times in Romans - "I am convinced...". If you desire the Halo, most of the time you gotta experience the Hardship. But God does not hold the title Faithful and True (Rev. 19:11) for no reason. He submits his many wonderous aides, convincings, persuasions and proofs that you and I can believe in Him and His loving care. Belief with God and in God is not blind, therefore there is No Need For A Leap Of Faith.