Over the years I have been asked numerous times, "Why does the Power of God explode in one person’s life but not in another?" You know the ones, every time you hear them speak they are testifying of something incredible that God has done in their life while you sit and wonder, "Why doesn’t anything like that ever happen to me, what is it exactly that moves the hand of God?"
I believe that one reason God withholds His power in the life of some is because there's no vision. By that I mean that we need to get a true vision of who Jesus is and what He wants to do in us and through our lives. Proverbs 29:18 tells us "Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, but happy is he who keeps the law." Jesus is so much more than just our Savior, He is our healer, our deliverer, our Lord. Having the right vision gives us purpose, motivation, direction and hope. It gives us the courage and boldness to step out in faith, trusting Him to accomplish His will in our lives.
The next reason is our prayer life. Many people do not have a solid prayer life, they may talk about God, trying to convince others they have a relationship with him, but they fail to communicate with God. Sure, they may talk to God, telling Him what they want or need Him to do for them, but often neglect to ask Him what it is He wants to do in our lives. I believe that's because we're afraid that He might ask something of us we're uncomfortable with, something we're not prepared to do! Prayer is having a conversation with God, not just about Him or telling Him what we want from Him. Conversation involves both talking and listening.
Lastly, I believe people do not see the hand of God moving in their lives, is because they lack genuine faith. They believe that God can do something, but they do not necessarily believe that He will. I've often heard many Christians claim "If it is His will." The will of God is to bless us and to bless us abundantly with more than we can ask, think or imagine. But we must have faith.
Matthew 17:20, "And He *said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you." A mustard seed starts out small, but over times, it grows into one of the largest, most impressive herb bushes. To be clear, great faith will always receive a immediate response but will not always produce an immediate result. If we’re going to see the mighty works of God in our lives, we must have a vision, we need to pray, communicating with God, speaking and listening, asking Him what He wants to accomplish in us, and then we must have great faith, trusting His will to be done in and through our lives. Lastly, we must believe that He is already at work in our lives, though we may not immediately see what He is doing. Without faith, it is impossible to please God.
Turn to Mark 5, verses 25-34, "A woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years, and had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse— after hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak. For she thought, "If I just touch His garments, I will get well." Immediately the flow of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. Immediately Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power proceeding from Him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, "Who touched My garments?" And His disciples said to Him, "You see the crowd pressing in on You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’" And He looked around to see the woman who had done this. But the woman fearing and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. And He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your affliction."
Then in Luke 5, "One day He was teaching; and there were some Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem; and the power of the Lord was present for Him to perform healing. And some men were carrying on a bed a man who was paralyzed; and they were trying to bring him in and to set him down in front of Him. But not finding any way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down through the tiles with his stretcher, into the middle of the crowd, in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, He said, "Friend, your sins are forgiven you."
I believe now we all know the power of believing and faith as well as the issue of unbelief, keeping God from doing what He could do. So let's open our Bibles to the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Verses 53-58. Matthew 13:53-58. I invite you to follow along with me as I read them. Let us open our hearts and see what the Spirit of God has to say to each of us.
"When Jesus had finished these parables, He departed from there. He came to His hometown and began teaching them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” And they took offense at Him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.” And He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief."
Although Jesus continue to teach many things, the eight parable mark the end of the disciples basic instruction, they have everything they need to carry out their ministry, as well as all of us today to succeed in a time of belief and unbelief, and when good and evil both coexist. The parables were primarily a response to the rejection of by the Jews. As we noted before, He never explained His parables to the multitudes who were not seeking the deeper Truth of God. If you will remember, back in verses 10-14, "And the disciples came and said to Him, "Why do You speak to them in parables?" Jesus answered them, "To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand."
Beginning here in verse 53 and continuing through the first part of chapter 16, Matthew records eight incidents that correspond with two of the parables. We find the first incident here in chapter 13:53-58, to the Jews in His hometown of Nazareth, Jesus was a stumbling block, because of their hardened hearts. In chapter 14:1-12, we see the second incident, involving Herod, who heart was equally as hardened, but rather than rejecting Him out of hatred, rejected Him out of indifference. In verses 13-21 and 34-36. we see the third incident, which comes in two parts, but in instances their fascination with Jesus was short lived, shallow and superficial.
The forth incident occurs between the two part of the third, in verses 22-33, was evidence by the disciples worshipping Jesus after He walked on water and calmed the storm. The fifth incident is in chapter 15:1-20, which involves the scribes and Pharisees, because of their unbelief, in their rejection attempted to find and excuse to condemn Him. The sixth incident in found in verses 21-28, which focuses on the Canaanite woman who confesses Jesus as Lord and begged Him to her daughter from demon possession.
The seventh incident involves the Galileans, who only partially received the gospel, and brought their sick and afflicted to Jesus, in verses 29-39, but made no genuine commitment. The eighth incident in 16:1-4, involves the Pharisees and Sadducees, who hearts were obviously hardened, asked Jesus for a sign, seeking to entrap Him. Through these various incidents, the Twelve witnessed living demonstrations of the principals contained in the parables in which Jesus taught about man's response to the Gospel, and the power of belief and unbelief. Unbelief is a choice, it is saying no to God in spite of the overwhelming evidence before you. Sadly, unbelief is what both Jesus and the disciples faced most, manifesting their rejection either by indifference or opposition. Even though Jesus demonstrated His power over sickness, sin and death, though He illustrated that He could perform miracles and teach with great authority. Not everyone honored Him.
Let's look at verse 53, "When Jesus had finished these parables, He departed from there." Jesus, the rejected King goes out into the harvest, proclaiming the message of salvation, calling men to come to His kingdom. This is a major mark of the King’s rejection. The primary message of the parables is, as we go out and proclaim the Gospel, we can expect that some will believe and most will not.
In verse 54, after Jesus left Capernaum, He went back to Nazareth, where He was raised, which is about a days walk from Capernaum. "He came to His hometown and began teaching them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?"
In Luke's account in chapter 4, he says "And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written,
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set free those who are oppressed, To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord."
And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
Jesus went right back into the eye of the storm, His hometown, fearlessly, boldly, courageously, graciously, lovingly, offering them a second chance. He tried to teach their narrow, prejudiced, jealous, proud, conceited minds. But, those in His hometown were the same, Jesus wasn’t, therefore, they did not really understand who He was. His posture was now indicative of the authority of the Word of God. This is a Messianic text that describes the ministry of the Messiah. When an interpreter read Hebrew and interpreted it into the Aramaic, he was not permitted to read his interpretation, lest the people think that it had the same authority as the written Word of God.When they handed Him the book of the prophet Isaiah, it was to be read from the 61st chapter. When He opened He read this Messianic text and in a monumental claim, said "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." He was saying "I am the fulfillment of this prophecy. I’ve come to be the Savior of the world to those who will hear and listen." You just don’t say that in a synagogue.
In verses 55-56, see find their response, "Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?"
Because of their resistant, hard-hearted unbelief, what they were saying is "We know this guy, He isn't anyone special. How then did He get so erudite? This can't be the Messiah, we saw Him grow up!" He spoke with authority, because He had the incredible, vast knowledge of all the truth of God, He penetrated the mind and the heart. His words cut right through their traditions and it was convicting and they couldn't stand it. Whether positive or negative, the truth will always have an impact. You can be astonished and still filled with unbelief no matter what the evidence. Notice they didn’t deny that He had miraculous powers.
The fact that even His enemies never ever tried to refute that He did these miraculous things, is one of the greatest defenses of the deity of Christ. They didn't deny that He did them, they knew wisdom came from God. In their unbelief they were denying the source of where His divine wisdom, profound truth and miraculous powers came from. It was obvious it was God, how can you deny that? So, their unbelief, was an act of the will. Folks, unbelief is always a choice! It's always settled on self-righteous justification and diverts itself from the main issue, moving to that which is irrelevant. Whether or not He was the carpenter's son, the son of Mary, who His brothers were, who they even named or who His sisters was is irrelevant. They just could not reconcile the Jesus they knew, with the One they now saw. That was the problem.
In my own ministry, I have faced the same issue. People look at who I once was, what I've done in the past and say "I know where you came from. I remember the things you did, who are you to instruct me about right and wrong?" I certainly do not deny my past mistakes, I acknowledge them and give the glory to God that through His Holy Spirit, He completely changed my life from what it once was to what it now is. Only God can do that! Some people just cannot accept what the power of God can do in a person's life.
Jesus said in John 5:37-38, "And the Father who sent Me, He has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form. You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent." Believing the righteous, they were far from God.
We see in verse 57, "And they took offense at Him. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household." They were offended by His background. The word offense is the Greek verb "skandalízō," meaning to cause to become indignant, to hinder right conduct or thought. Their depravity runs deep. The people of Nazareth missed out on the miracles of Jesus. Jesus was quoting a well-known saying among the Jewish people. Because of their unbelief and the lack of honor, they took offense.
For more than year, He taught about sin, repentance, regeneration, obedience, jealousy, anger, murder and hypocrisy. He taught the truth about divorce, adultery,morality humility and dying to self as well as heaven and hell. Verse 58 says "And He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief." Did not do many emphasizes the quantity involved, perhaps He did a few. Most of the miracles Jesus performed was either because of great personal faith, or to strengthen the faith of those who believed in Him. He even acted where there was no faith, where someone was neutral. While there are no limitations on the miracles God can perform, Jesus chose not to perform them where there was willful unbelief. Unbelief is a barrier to divine blessing. The bottomline is people can run around demanding and declaring all the miracles they want, God is not obligated to give them.
In Closing..
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen