Mustard, Not Ketchup

Dear Friends,

This past Sunday was “Commitment Sunday” at our church. For those of you who missed it, or have never been to one of our Commitment Sunday services, here’s how it works: there is a specific Sunday set aside where all of the volunteer needs of the church are listed on big sheets of paper that are hanging on the walls of the church. Then, after an impassioned plea from the pastor, the congregation prayerfully considers the needs, and commits to doing whatever God puts on their heart to do.

I will admit that I was not looking forward to Commitment Sunday this year - mostly because we had a lot of volunteer positions to fill, and our congregation is small. So my expectation was that we would finish the morning with a lot of blank white paper on the wall, and I would go home discouraged. But God had a different plan, and at the end of Commitment Sunday, we had almost all of the volunteer slots filled.

It was an amazing time of seeing God move in people’s hearts, and the results were well beyond my wildest expectations. As I stood at the back of the church, watching person after person sign up, I thought, “We are a very small church, with a very big God.” And what’s true for our church is true for all of us who believe. We are small, and we bring very little to the table. But the God we belong to is bigger than we can imagine - and through His power, amazing things can happen.

In Matthew 17:20, Jesus tells His disciples, “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’, and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.” A mustard seed is very, very tiny - but once it’s planted, it can grow into a huge tree. So the point Jesus is making in Matthew is that a little faith can have incredible results, because it's God who does the work. So rather than trusting in ourselves or our plans, our faith needs to be in God - because there’s nothing that our God can't do.

But it's not just in big events, it's also in our day-to-day lives as we try to follow God. We need to have faith - even if that faith begins as tiny as a mustard seed - and then let God work. Does this mean God wants us to sit and do nothing? Absolutely not. We need to be obedient and move forward in whatever He calls us to do - and do it all enthusiastically and wholeheartedly. But that doesn't take away from the fact that it's still going to be God who takes that work and makes great things happen.

So today, let's have faith. No matter what it is that we're facing - financial challenges, relationship challenges, heavy workloads, people we're trying to reach for God - whatever it is, let's take all of it and commit it to God. Then let's trust Him to deal with it according to His plans, taking our little bit of faith, and doing mighty things.

Amen?

Daniel