Tag Archives: unbelief

The Cost Of Unbelief!

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THE COST OF UNBELIEF!

Jesus left there and went to His hometown, accompanied by His disciples. When the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard Him were amazed. ‘Where did this man get these things?’ they asked. ‘What’s this wisdom that’s been given to Him? What are these remarkable miracles He is performing? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t His sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at Him.  

Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honour 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 He was amazed at their lack of faith. Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village (Mark. 6: 1-6).   

Two things amazed Jesus – great faith and no faith! Two remarkable miracles had just happened. Jairus’ daughter had been raised from the dead, and the woman with chronic bleed had been healed. Surely the news had got around. They didn’t need Facebook to publish what had happened!

Then Jesus went to Nazareth! Their homeboy had come home. Come Sabbath and He was in His place in the synagogue as usual. How many times had He been in that place as a child and a young boy growing up among them? It was nice to have Him home, but then they began to chat among themselves. ‘We know this guy,’ they muttered. ‘What’s it with Him? We know His parents. His brothers and sisters are right here in Nazareth. Who does He think He is? Where does He get all this stuff He’s telling us?’

They were non-plussed. Nothing about Jesus made sense to them. They could not shake Him loose from His small-town origins – so they thought. How could He be so different from the rest of His family? They were just ordinary folks like the rest of the people in the village, but this Jesus? They could not figure Him out. He was saying things and making claims by insinuation that were just too much for them to swallow.

How would you have reacted to a man who grew up in front of you, goes off for a while and then comes back, teaches in the synagogue like a professor and says things that, by implication, claim that He is God! Wouldn’t you think He was crazy? Wouldn’t you want to lock Him up before He did something really dangerous?

We would, except for one thing. The things they were puzzled about – His teaching, His wisdom, His remarkable miracles – were the very evidence that He was very different from the ordinary people in Nazareth. They judged Him and dismissed Him by His family; His mother was Mary, a local girl; His brothers and sisters all lived among them and they didn’t speak or act like He did. So He must be crazy!

They were faced with a decision – just as every other person who met Him was faced with a decision. They either believed what He said and did and accepted the evidence that He was the Son of God, or they ignored the evidence and wrote Him off, just as the people of Nazareth did.

Jesus spent time with His disciples – three and half years, to be exact – painstakingly teaching them and showing them, incident by incident, miracle by miracle and explanation by explanation, who He was. Their reaction, in the beginning, was like the reaction of His own people – amazement, puzzlement, and even fear. But slowly their truth began to dawn on them. He was no ordinary man. He was a man alright. They lived in such intimate connection with Him that they could not help but realise that He was human, but at the same time, He was much more than a man. What other man, even the most godly prophet in their history, came anywhere near Him in His really knew God. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” declared Peter, their spokesman.

If only His own townsfolk had properly read the evidence and made an honest judgement instead of taking offence! They missed a never-to-be-repeated opportunity. No faith, no miracles, no change of heart, no new life.

What about you? Who do you say Jesus is? Faced with the evidence, you have to make a decision.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Kindness And Sternness

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KINDNESS AND STERNNESS

“Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God; sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in His kindness. Otherwise, you too will be cut off. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature and, contrary to nature, were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?” Romans 11:22-24.

That puts paid to the pernicious “once saved, always saved” doctrine!

There is a never-ending supply of God’s grace for those who “continue in His kindness.” Of that we can be absolutely confident. However, God’s covenant with His people is a two-way agreement. In one sense He has done it all. There is nothing we can add to what Jesus did by His life and death to make it more effective. He has redeemed us from slavery to sin, reconciled us to the Father and restored us to His family as His sons and daughters. “He has given us everything we need for living a godly life…” 2 Peter 1;3a. He has placed His Spirit within us to nuture and guide us in His ways.

But, like the Israelites who were cut off because of their unbelief and disobedience, we can also be cut off if we persist in living according to the flesh. There is ample evidence in the Scriptures, both in the Old and the New Testaments that the initiative to remain in union with God is ours. Consider what Jesus said to His disciples on the eve of His crucifixion:

‘If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” John 15:6.

Sobering words from the Master Himself!

Paul was equally adamant that the life of God in us must produce the fruit of that life.

“Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.” Romans 8:5, 6.

From where does the idea come that we can continue to live as we like and still remain in the vine? Our union with Jesus is both passive and active – passive in that we need do nothing to remain in Him because He has called us into His rest, yet active in that we continue to trust Him, obey His Word and walk in the Spirit.

“For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.” Romans 8:14.

There is no limit to God’s kindness towards those who believe and obey what He says, but only punishment for those who do not. He cannot do otherwise because He has done everything necessary to restore us to Himself but leaves the choice to us. Answering an altar call or signing decision card, or even receiving Jesus as our personal Saviour is not the criterion – only obedience is.

For the Jew as well as the Gentile, the way back to God is the same. They, and we, cannot count on our ancestry to guarantee our relationship with the Father; it is individual and personal, just as God revealed to Habakkuk:

“…The righteous person will live by his faithfulness.” Habakkuk 2:4b.

Like many of God’s promises, eternal life is conditional. It is a partnership between us and God. We believe and He responds to our faith by energising us to obey. The Holy Spirit is the “fuel” who gives power to our choices. We act upon the promises of God and He moves us closer to the image of His Son.

“Through these (His own glory and goodness), He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world caused by evil desires.” 2 Peter 1:4.

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Dumbstruck

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DUMBSTRUCK

“Zachariah said to the angel, ‘Do you expect me to believe this? I am an old man and my wife is an old woman.’

“But the angel said, ‘I am Gabriel, the sentinel of God, sent especially to bring you this glad news. But because you won’t believe me, you’ll be unable to say a word until the day of your son’s birth. Every word I’ve spoken to you will come true on time — God’s time.'” Luke 1:18-20 (The Message).

Does old age dim one’s confidence in a good God, or had Zachariah become so sceptical that not even a high-ranking angel’s appearance could convince him that God was actually communicating with him?

Imagine speaking to an angel like that! Surely the presence of an angelic being so awesome that Zachariah was paralysed with fear, would have convinced him that this was no joke, especially after Gabriel had given him details about his son’s nature and upbringing

Gabriel was God’s messenger, particularly assigned to carry messages regarding the coming of Messiah. It was he who visited Mary six months later to announce that she was to be the earthly mother of the Messiah.

Why did Zachariah respond with such scepticism? There are probably many reasons. His longing, together with his wife, Elizabeth’s, had died as old age took away any hope of their having a child, and with it their confidence that God would finally answer their prayers, regardless of their physical impotence to bear a child.

The angel came so unexpectedly and pounced on him so suddenly that his elderly brain had no time to process this surprise. All he could think of was the state of his body and the body of his wife. He was so much like us. We tend to look at the impossibilities rather than God’s promises, and draw our conclusions from what we can see rather than what God said.

Israel reacted in the same way when they were confronted with the prospect of entering and conquering a land that was full of giants and had fortified cities to overcome. They did not reckon on God’s promise, made to Abraham centuries before, and the power of God to override natural difficulties with supernatural intervention.

Zachariah’s unbelief came with a price. God would not let him off for mistrusting His Word. Zachariah was not only emotionally dumbstruck by the angel’s appearance; he would also be literally dumbstruck for the nine months of his wife’s pregnancy. This would present him with some unusual difficulties including the neighbours’ idea that being dumb meant that he was also deaf! (Luke 1:62).

Fortunately Zachariah’s handicap only lasted until the birth of his son. Perhaps it was in the mercy of God that He shut his mouth so that he could utter no more words of unbelief until the promise of God was fulfilled.

How often do we not put God’s promises on hold, or even cancel them by our confession of unbelief because we are more impressed by what we can see and hear than what God has said in His Word. We might learn a lesson from this reluctant priest who robbed himself of speech until the Word of the Lord proved him a liar.