Saturday, July 18: Mark 6- Faith, healings and miracles.

It says in verses 4-6 that Jesus had trouble doing miracles in His own hometown due to their lack of faith. Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” 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.

I struggle with the place of faith with the miraculous… so rather than run from it, I ponder these things.

How I am picturing my understanding right now is that faith is a conduit between us and God through which God works His miracles. A lack of faith can clog the conduit so miracles don’t happen, or as in the case of Jesus in his hometown only a few miracles happen. Faith does not guarantee a miracle, nor does the lack of faith guarantee no miracle. God is always Sovereign; He can knock an enemy off a horse and turn him into a great apostle/evangelist.

And yet faith is somehow generally a component to being used of God and seeing the great works of God.

The sad thing about the account read today is that people missed out on seeing miracles and a demonstration of who Jesus truly was by their lack of faith. In fact, verse 3 tells us some took offense at him. This is not only a lack of faith but distain for Jesus. Ouch. Distain is a strong word. It seems they rejected Him… to which I say, ‘no wonder miracles could not be done!’

After all my wrestling with this idea, I land on my feet crying:

Lord, I believe… help me gain victory in those areas where some unbelief still lives! Give me the power to believe and to know Your love, which is higher, wider, deeper and more vast than I can possible imagine. Help me to know Your love… to live in Your love so that I can give away Your love to as many people as I can. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

 

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