Signs

You know me...let's jump right to the Scripture. :) I want to touch on Mark 6:5-6 which states, "And because of their unbelief, he couldn't do any mighty miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their unbelief."

"And what was it that cased this man who could control the weather and raise the dead to become powerless? The people's lack of faith. Their unbelief was like kryptonite to Jesus." [pg.104]

I believe it's important to clear up a misconception, or what I take as a misconception/misperception. Their unbelief was not like kryptonite to Jesus. There was absolutely no limitation on Jesus' power. His purpose was to perform miracles in the presence of faith. Only a few here had faith to come to Him for healing. Those people who did come were healed. Now, it is true that Jesus was amazed (ethaumasen, "astonished") at their unbelief, their unwillingness to believe that His wisdom and power were from God. So far as history has shown, He never returned to Nazareth. I find the people of Nazareth a perfect representation of Israel's blindness. The people's refusal to believe in Jesus was a picture which the disciples would soon be experiencing (see Mark 6:7-13) and what Mark's readers, then and even today, would experience in the advancement of the gospel.

At the bottom of pg. 104 the author says, "The more we demand that God prove himself and make sense to us, the less he will." Back in April of 1993 I wrote in the front of my Bible, "We say show me and I'll believe. God says, No, believe and I will show you." God truly doesn't work the way man thinks He ought.

As for the people who desired to see the signs before they believed they truly didn't understand. First Corinthians 1:22 says, "For the Jews require a sign..." My understanding is the rabbis taught that, when Messiah came, He would duplicate the miracle of the manna. It is important to remember that faith which is based on signs alone, and not on the truth of the Word, can lead us astray; for even our enemy is able to perform "lying wonders" (2 Thessalonians 2:8-10). In response, if you read on through the next few verses in John 6, the Lord sought to deepen the peoples understanding of the truth. It was God, not Moses, who gave the manna; so they must take their eyes off Moses and focus them on God. How often do we do the same thing? We redirect our focus to anything other than God! Also, God gave the manna in the past, but the Father is now giving the true bread in the Person of Jesus Christ. The past event is finished, but the present spiritual experience goes on!!

James goes on and talks about how people are either drawn to Jesus or repelled by Him. That makes me think of the verse in 2 Corinthians 2:15-16, "For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life." The example I've used many times is of a person who walks into a room in which a woman with a beautiful scent of perfume has already entered. The person sniffs the air is attracted to her scent. It smells wonderful! However, there are others who would smell that same perfume which lingers in the air and say, "Ewww! What stinks?" My prayer is that I always emit that sweet aroma of Christ!