One of the most damning things ever said about anyone in the Bible in my view was recorded in the gospels about the inhabitants of Jesus’s hometown of Nazareth. He had been unable to do many miracles there, He only laid hands on a few sick people and healed them, and it says that Jesus was amazed at their unbelief.
Jesus was big on faith. He commended it when He found it, like in the centurion, indeed He marvelled at the centurion’s faith; and decried it when it was lacking, as He did with the disciples. He also preached on it and talked about what it will do if you have if. But shocking to me is that they were unbelieving to the point where even Jesus was surprised.
I wonder if that is not sometimes the case today in our lives and as Ministers in the lives of the people we preach too. How many things that Jesus wanted to do in our lives and through us have been left undone because we stubbornly refuse to believe? Of course we couch it all in theological terms and attribute our misses to ‘the sovereignty of God’.
I wonder, does God sometimes look at us in amazement as we moan and bemoan our lot thinking, ‘how astounding, they are so unbelieving’? I know I must have seemed like that to Him sometimes but my goal and prayer as I grow is to provoke in Him more and more of the same response as He had with the centurion.
Can I really walk in faith such as to cause God to marvel at my faith? I mean not only say to me ‘Your faith has healed you, blessed you, brought you this outcome (I paraphrase) as He was wont to say to people. No I mean have Him sit on the edge of His throne and say ‘Have you seen my daughter Bola, what faith! This one believes me’.
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