Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!” And the man jumped up, grabbed his mat, and walked out through the stunned onlookers. They were all amazed and praised God, exclaiming, “We’ve never seen anything like this before.”
Mark 2:10 - 12 NLT)
In Mark 1:30-34 Jesus heals many. Mark 1: 38 and 39 - Jesus continues to travel and speak and cast out demons. Verses 40 and following retells of Jesus cleansing a leper. Just in one chapter, Jesus has been very busy - publicly I might add. These things Mark tells of were not hidden or only in front of a few people so it seems odd that by the time Jesus is in the setting where a man’s friend’s would lower him through the roof in order to be healed by Jesus and He does, some of the onlookers can be quoted as saying that they have never seen anything like this before and they can be described as being amazed. What I wonder is why were they still amazed? Hadn’t He done enough to prove that God’s presence was now here on earth?
How about us? I know physical Jesus went back up and sent the Holy Spirit back down but have people, even though they might be followers of Christ, become desensitized to a work of the Holy Spirit so that it is amazing when He does something that only He can do? I’m not suggesting that we should ever lose our awe when God does something, no, what I am wondering is do we not understand enough that God can do amazing things? And we are blindsided, so to speak, when he does? Or, has it been so long since God did anything in our life that we don’t simply see the consistency? We, as long time followers of Christ, should be no more amazed when God does something that only God can do then we are when a major league baseball star hits a grand slam home run. Of course he can, that’s why he came to the team. Even though it’s great, if you were to interview the baseball coach, he might reply with something like “of course he hit a homerun that’s what he’s here to do, I’m not amazed, I had full faith in his ability to do this thing. I fully expected that this would not be a problem for him.” This is the type of faith and expectancy that we, as followers of Christ, should have.
Let us be encouraged and remember that God said He would never leave us or forsake us. We can be an example to the watching world of a people who know the power of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. Let us be a people who bear witness with the confidence we have that when we pray with the right spirit and intentions, we know God‘s got this. We can be the ones who say, although I am in awe, I’ve seen this before, I’m pleased but not surprised by this outcome- this is who the God I serve, is...
Lord help us to remain confident that this pandemic thing, this election thing, this civil unrest thing is not more powerful than You are.
Lord, bolster our confidence in Your consistency of how You’ve never let us down before.
Give us the words to say, maybe even today, if someone needs to be encouraged.