Great Faith

"He was amazed at their lack of faith." Mark 6:6

When I study the record of Jesus' return to His hometown of Nazareth after all the preaching and miracles He had performed, it saddens me to think of how His people rejected Him. They refused to believe that the same Jesus who had worked as a carpenter amongst them was also the Son of God. Their Savior. Their Messiah. How tragic. And yet we see the same reaction to Christ today. People will accept His "good teaching" -- they'll even accept His blessings -- but they will not accept that He came to save their souls. And so they reject Him. They reject the gift of salvation He so freely offers. They reject His grace. Mark tells us that in the atmosphere of rejection in Nazareth, Jesus "could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them." This does not mean that Jesus was powerless to perform miracles, for certainly He performed many miracles in the presence of Pharisees and Sadducees, who did not believe He was God. No, Jesus was able, but He chose not to honor the obvious unbelief of those stubborn people, healing only a few who believed. Never let it be said of me that Jesus is amazed at my lack of faith! Instead, my prayer for myself and you is that Jesus will be amazed at the size of our faith. That He will say of us as He said of the Roman Centurion in Luke 7:9, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.”