Matthew 21:18-22

Now in the morning, when He was returning to the city, He became hungry. Seeing a lone fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it except leaves only; and He said to it, “No longer shall there ever be any fruit from you.” And at once the fig tree withered. Seeing this, the disciples were amazed and asked, “How did the fig tree wither all at once?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it will happen. And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”^[1]

What does your faith do? Or, what is it you do with your faith? It is a crucial question because faith is not something you possess but something you exercise. Faith is that which should characterize your very life. Sadly, however, a modern Christianity has reduced faith to just the Christian way of claiming to be spiritual. It defines and identifies a mentality or an attitude more than a way of life. Rather than doing something with what one believes it has become little more than a moniker that says we are believers, people of faith. But if one’s faith does nothing it is empty, void and devoid of any and all power.

Jesus was hungry so while he was traveling he saw a fig tree off in the distance. He could see that it had leaves upon it but when he got close to it he could see that it did not have any figs upon it. This is significant to note because fig trees in the region were known to bear fruit first before leaves appeared. So when Jesus approached the tree the fact that it had leaves upon it was evidence that it should have borne figs and it did not. As a consequence, Jesus ‘cursed’ the tree, not in the sense we today understand a curse, but in the sense of judgment, judgment that guaranteed that it would never bear fruit again.

It occurred to me that this account speaks a word far more in-depth than we have wanted to acknowledge. Emphasis has normally been placed on what faith apart from doubt can accomplish, and that is an important subject to explore; but I am far more interested in what I see in this account concerning the consequences of a faith that does nothing. James tells us “Faith, if it has no works, is dead” (2:17). The fig tree was designed to bear figs but it did not and as a result Jesus pronounces judgment upon it and it never bears fruit again. Are you under a curse today because your faith is fruitless. Like the fruit tree we have been designed and built to bear fruit. What are you doing with your faith?

Dear Lord, we are guilty of having a sedentary faith, a faith that is stagnate and fruitless. We are guilty of having faith as a possession instead of a utility. We have no desire to be like the fig tree whom You cursed because it bore no fruit. Move us from the realm of slothfulness, laziness to the place where our faith is productive and effective. Raise up opportunities today for us to use our faith not for our own good or glory, but for Your glory and the advancement of Your Everlasting Kingdom. Amen.

^[1] New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Mt 21:18–22.