What was it that Jesus had just taught that caused the apostles to respond, "Increase our faith!"?
Jesus had just told them that if their brother, "sins against you that you are to rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in a day and turns to you seven times, saying, 'I repent,' you must forgive him."(Luke 17:3,4) This kind of forgiveness is not natural.
Jesus' response to their request showed that it's not the amount of faith that counts but the quality of the faith you have. He told them that faith the size of a mustard seed could uproot a mulberry tree and cause it to be planted in the sea. In another place He told them that faith the size of a mustard seed could remove mountains. Why? Because a seed has life inside it.
*In Italy there is a remarkable tomb. An enormous block of granite was brought and placed there by order of the man who is buried underneath. Before he died, he arranged that this great mass of granite should be laid over his tomb; and he did so, saying that he did it in order that if there ever was a resurrection, it might be certain he should never rise! We smile at the folly of it. It is an interesting fact that this block of granite weighing tons is there but split in two. Between the hour of his sepulture and the placing of that block over his grave, a bird flying across carrying an acorn, happened to drop the acorn right there. They put the granite slab in place, and if you see it now, that enormous slab of granite weighing tons, is split clean through the middle and the oak tree from the acorn is there, growing straight up through it! The living power in the acorn has split the granite. If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, if your faith has but a living quality, if your faith is more than dead orthodoxy, the acceptance of certain statements as true intellectually, if it is a living thing, which in your life is producing results that are in consonance with the things you profess to believe, then there is nothing impossible, said Jesus. You will be able to forgive your brother seven times. *
We don't need more faith; we need living faith.
*G Camble Morgan