In today's devotional we will learn about how faith works. However, more than that, we see 2 confusing encounters of things that hinder the power of God; the response of the people of Gerasenes to Jesus healing someone we will call a mad man. The second is the response of the people of Nazareth as the hero from their town comes home. On our lesson on how faith works, we see a woman, without anyone needing to pray for her receives her healing; "She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition.
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Mark 5:27-29 NLT. Jesus calls this having faith; "And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.”
Mark 5:34 NLT. In Jairus case, he receives his dead daughter back to life from the dead because he held on to his faith; "But Jesus overheard them and said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith.”
Mark 5:36 NLT. However, today's devotional is not only focused on how faith works, we also see the important lesson about unbelief and fear and how it can hinder the power of God. First, we see the response of the community to a mad man being healed and it is simply outstanding; many of them might have once thought about doing something for the mad man, but when it finally happens, their response was fear; "Then those who had seen what happened told the others about the demon-possessed man and the pigs. And the crowd began pleading with Jesus to go away and leave them alone.
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Mark 5:16-17 NLT. Talk of an anti-climax. How could their response to a man being healed possibly be to ask Jesus to leave? Our final lesson comes from Nazareth, the town where Jesus grew up. As anointed as Jesus was, he could only heal a few sick folks because of their unbelief. "Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his relatives and his own family.” And because of their unbelief, he couldn’t do any miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them.
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Mark 6:4-5 NLT. The lesson today is simple; faith can usher in the miraculous into our lives while unbelief, fear and other negative emotions hinders them. My charge this morning is to encourage us to constantly examine our hearts to be sure what we have there is faith and not unbelief or fear.
