Devotionals
"I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." John 14:12
Do you believe Jesus was crazy when he said those words? Many do, even among Christians. Oh, we may not come right out and say it, but by our testimony we show our true belief. Some of us may say that those words don't apply to our time, but only to the original Christian community. In so doing, though, we call Jesus a liar because he gave no such condition to his statement. Rather, he said 'anyone who has faith in me'.
It's truly a curse of the so-called 'enlightened' age that such arguments for a temporal nature to Jesus' statements seem plausible to us. Oh, Jesus' words only apply to Christians in Biblical times, not to us. It makes sense to us, for most of us don't see miracles performed on a regular basis, if ever. Or, do we? Perhaps the miracles occur, but we just don't have the eyes to see them.
Let me illustrate with a story. Last Saturday, my family went to the bookstore. Our two year old daughter, Amanda, decided, as always, to turn the store into her playhouse. Well, at one point she bolted away from my wife, Laura, so fast that I couldn't move out of the way. She tripped over my foot and went flying belly down onto the floor.
Usually, she gets right up, but she had probelms standing. I was loaded down with books, so I couldn't come to her aid quickly and neither could my wife. Finally, she managed to get to her feet, but stood on shaky legs. She managed a few limping steps, then fell to the ground, wailing in pain. I picked her up, scared that she had truly hurt herself. "Jesus, Jesus, heal those legs," I prayed, aloud. Amanda's crying stopped momentarily when I said those words.
Her crying resumed seconds later and she strained to get back to the ground. About one minute later, I put her down and she promptly ran off without any hint of discomfort. Had she truly been hurt? Did she feel the healing when I called upon to Jesus to heal her? Was that why she stopped crying or was it my imagination?
You see, miracles are not easy to see for what they are. There can always be doubt. I do believe God healed my daughter's legs that evening in miraculous fashion and I believe Jesus' words are true. The question is, will I act on that belief and therefore confirm that faith as real. What does it take for a man to publicly call on God for the healing of another in dramatic fashion? Why don't we do it more often? Because we'll look like fools if nothing happens. If that's the case, then whose interests are we looking out for first?
You see, one problem with faith in the culture we live in has to do with our tendency to rationalize and understand God. We seek to understand Him for our own sake and so that we can adequately explain him to others. One example of this comes from the writings of C.S. Lewis (a thinker whose works I generally find very edifying). He spoke of miracles (to paraphrase) as things that would occur, but are somehow hastened by God. As an example, he gave the changing of water to wine, a process that occurs in nature when vines absorb water from the soil and through fermentation that water transforms into wine. Such thinking, while interesting, strips away the miraculous nature and the wonder of God's actions, and, incidentally, can be used to explain only some of the miracles described in the Bible. How does that explain, for example, the sun standing still for a day as described in the book of Joshua?
Much of the attempt to understand and rationalize God comes as part of the apologetic movement. We want to explain God to others that they may see Him more clearly and come to faith. What we fail to realize is that God cannot truly be understood or explained. There arrives quickly a point beyond which we cannot truly explain Him, but must merely accept things by faith. We must believe in what we cannot see. When we come to accept what the Bible says despite not understanding, then we shall arrive at true faith. It's not a so-called 'blind' faith, but a trust in the Word of God. Do we trust Him? Then we must believe what He says. If we do so, then we might realize that Jesus was certainly not crazy nor mistaken when he spoke the words quoted above. He must have been correct, for the Bible tells us so.
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Wonderful article! Every time we try to put God in a box, we find that He doesn't fit. So let's take Him at His word; we just might find out that it's true.
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