Ep 53 Increase Our Faith, Lk 17:5-10

The apostles have asked the Lord to increase their faith, and in verses six through ten Luke records two of the foundational truths with which He answered them. Both are given to them as parables. The first, in verse six, reminds us to keep our attention focused on the unlimited power of God rather than the size of our own faith. It's God's power that does the work, and all we need is enough true faith to connect with Him. The second truth is the subject of our study today, and in this parable (vs. 7-10), Jesus bluntly warns us to never think we earn answers to prayers because of the service we do for God. When it comes to God answering prayers, He will no more reward us for ministering on His behalf than a slaveowner would reward a slave. The normal tendency in all humans is to try to earn God's blessings. When we have faithfully done things for Him, we assume He will be grateful and therefore be more ready to answer our prayers. But, this attitude is built on the presumption that we can earn God's favor.

By selecting the cruel institution of slavery, Jesus makes it unavoidably clear that when it comes to serving God, hard work would be followed by more hard work and, even after all was done, we still would not have earned one special favor from God. At first glance, this makes God sound like a thankless taskmaster who abuses His servants, but that is not what Jesus is saying, and from many of Jesus' other teachings we know God is not like a slave owner at all. We know He is thankful and will reward us for our service (Lk 12:37,43,47; 19:17) and does not consider us slaves, but rather His adopted children (Lk 15:19,21, 22; Jn 15:15;Gal 4:1-7). But, if we take Jesus' teaching to heart, we will never again rely on our good works to get God to answer our prayers.

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