I was reading from Mark 6 this morning. Jesus is in his hometown and people are questioning his credentials and his abilities. He's the guy they've all known their whole lives. He grew up with many of them, they had hired him to do carpentry. And now suddenly he's the Messiah? I guess I can't say I blame them for their comments and their questions. It would be a little tough to wrap your mind around. But aside from that, there's a really interesting thing that Mark tells us at the end of these few verses. This is what he tells us:
"He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith."
A couple of things stand out to me about this. First of all, there is a direct link between the amount of faith people have, and God's ability (is that the right word?) to do miraculous things. Mark tells us "He could not do any miracles there...." And apparently it was their lack of faith that made it impossible for these things to happen. That all tells me that if I want God to do amazing things in and through me, I need more faith. My faith is weak. And I need to grow in that regard.
Secondly though, look at what Jesus did do. It says that he couldn't do any miracles there, "except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them." So "all" he could do was heal people? I don't know about you, but I think that healing people would be pretty unbelievable! And yet, for Jesus, he's disappointed because he clearly wanted to do more than that. Do you ever get the feeling that maybe we think and dream too small with God? I mean, sometimes I pray for God to do things like heal someone from a sickness. But how often to I pray that God will cure blindness, take away cancer, make the lame walk? What if what we ask for, and what our "faith" hopes for is absolutely nothing compared to what God really wants to do? It's a crazy thought isn't it? If God were going to decide what to do today based on your faith, what would we see happen? I know that my answer to that question is embarrassing. Pray with me that God will increase our faith.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Faith
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