If faith has footsteps, it also has a voice. Last week we discovered that within God’s voice is the grace (or provision) to walk out what he says. But in this text, Jesus models a different aspect of faith. The voice of faith! Abraham had to climb his mountain, but we can speak to it! We do not negate the importance of taking real action in obeying God, but Jesus is revealing another aspect of faith that we must pay closer to attention to.
Jesus is teaching his disciples (us) how to exercise the voice of faith. He speaks to the fig tree and it withered in a day. There is power in the voice of faith to tear down or to build up. The Proverbs say that life and death are in the power of the tongue (18:21). We can speak life or we can speak death.
One of the mountains in my life was my own sinfulness. More specifically an addiction to pornography that I struggled with as a teenager and into my early twenties. It was my understanding that I had to learn to conquer this mountain by climbing it. If I read my Bible, prayed and had enough accountability I would be able to overcome it. I was trying to walk in the footsteps of faith but I was actually walking in the footsteps of my flesh. It wasn’t until I learned to SPEAK to this mountain of sin, based on what I heard God say, that I was truly set free.
“So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:11)