I must begin by giving You praise this morning, Father, for Your touch on my mother. You hand has truly been upon her. She has a time of healing to go but she knows that You are with her all the way. Praise Your Holy Name for Your watchcare over my family and friends. Amen!

Matthew 17:19-20 (<<click the green)

Not enough can be said about faith; for that is where our true power as followers of Christ is. Not faith in ourselves or our strengths or our gifts or our abilities but faith in Christ alone. Christ, and Christ alone, is the source of our strength, our gifts, and our abilities. And He does not hold back! He freely, generously gives! But the key…is faith.

Thinking on this passage, a story came to mind of a church whose faith literally moved a mountain. They had built their church on a mountainside and after it was complete were told by powers that be that they couldn’t use the building because they only had half as much parking as they needed. Without literally “moving the mountain” they had no other options.

The pastor called a prayer meeting to appeal to God to meet their needs – move the mountain, pave and paint the lot before the scheduled dedication service the following Sunday. The very next day a knock was heard at his door and a gentleman representing a construction company presented his case to the pastor. They were building a new shopping mall and needed fill dirt. They would pay for the dirt and pave all the exposed area free of charge.

The little church was dedicated the next Sunday as originally planned and there were far more members with “mountain moving faith” on opening Sunday than there had been the previous week!

Now here is where we are challenged. In my search to find the story, the lead link was to a familiar website that I myself have looked at to verify the validity of stories passed around the internet. They referred to this story as “someone’s attempt to render the aphorism [i.e. a pithy observation that contains a general truth] that ‘faith can move mountains’ as a literal anecdote.” They also stated that it was “a charming story about the power of faith.” I make no apologies for these words – aphorism, general truth, and charming –sounding condescending to me.

Here’s some more of what was written:

“We might look at the other side of the coin, however, and consider the maxim that tells us “God helps those who help themselves.” The characters in this little tale construct a new church without heeding the local building codes, then when they’re informed that — because of their own mistakes — they won’t be able to use it as built, they do nothing affirmative to rectify the situation. They don’t attempt to raise any money, to do any work themselves, or even to consider possible alternative remedies (such as building a parking structure). They want their new church and they want it now, so they simply get together and ask God to solve all their problems for them, giving Him a ten-day deadline to boot… Maybe faith really can move mountains, but should we expect the Almighty to do for us what we’re perfectly capable of doing for ourselves?”

First of all, the phrase “God helps those who help themselves.” cannot be found in the Bible so right off we cannot compare the words Jesus himself spoke with words that are not divinely inspired.

Obviously, the person writing these words knows nothing of having faith not in ourselves but in Christ alone. Now I fully realize that the story of the church on the mountain is probably not true but I also heartily hold that just because it isn’t doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be!

June 23, 2018, Sat, 6:46 am