Mark 9:23-24 (NKJV) 23 Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” 24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”
Yesterday I shared the things the Lord has been speaking to me over the last 5 years. These yearly themes have been things I believe God wants to build into his church so that the next great move of God can come through us to the earth. They have been progressively leading in a direction and I believe this year he has added to what he is building in my heart.
Our theme for 2016 is “If you can believe, all things are possible.” This is not some new revelation. It is something every Christian who believes in the bible and the power of God takes as apparent. However, I also believe it is the first casualty of those times when we are between moves of God.
Historically the church has gone through periods of great revival and times of faithfulness. God always moves for his people but in those special times when he is doing something historic things are different. Things that are hard at other times become easier during those times. These moves often come during times of stress and upheaval in the natural. The last great move of God began in the 1960’s in the midst of the Vietnam era and all the trouble and strife that went with it. In the middle of that went on, God began to pour out his spirit in a new way.
When there is no tangible move of God, believers find themselves in times where there is nothing “special” happening. They must simply continue to believe God, work to build his Kingdom and stay faithful to his name. That often leads to a sense that nothing will change. This causes many to begin to lose the awareness that God can do anything. They lean more on natural solutions to problems and lose the edge of faith that comes when God is moving in an obvious way.
The story of the father and son in Mark 9 is characteristic of what happens in those times. We have looked at this in this space before, but I want to touch on it again as it is where God has had me focusing in my life and for this next year.
This father came to Jesus believing that God could do something for him. When he got to where he thought Jesus was, Jesus was off on a mountain somewhere. He was not where the father needed him to be. He asked the disciples to help but they were ineffective. The religious leaders got involved and told him that Jesus was not of God and he should not be asking anyway. I believe all of us can relate to this man.
Have you ever felt like Jesus was somewhere else just when you needed him? Have you ever felt that things just were not working for you? Have you heard the voice of religion saying things like, “God doesn’t really do that kind of thing. Faith is fine but you need to use wisdom.” I believe all of us have and I believe that attack of the enemy is even more prevalent during times between moves of God.
The father was so worn down by these things that he was transformed from someone who came to Jesus knowing that he could help to one who could only ask, “If you can, please do something for us.” He ended up wondering if the healing of his son was even possible. I believe that describes many of us today. We have faith but disappointments, ineffectiveness and the voice of the world and religions have caused us to lose the reality of the fact that God can do anything.
I believe this is a major attack of the devil right now on the body of Christ. I believe God wants us to stir our faith and our expectations again. When we accept as fact that anything is possible, we are in the place where faith can rise.
One of the things that tries to take over our thinking is that we must be practical. We begin to look at the possibilities in the natural and we have a hard time seeing past them. The essence of faith is to look past the practical and begin to believe for what is impossible. When we stretch into that realm we are looking into the supernatural and the limitations of the flesh begin to fall away.
I am not talking right now about taking that step into believing what God will do for us now. We must come to that if we are going to see results. Right now I am talking about taking a step back and simply grabbing hold of the abstract truth that anything is possible if God is truly God. If we do not start there we will never take the next step into believing that God will do for us what he said.
As I was preparing to minister this to our church I felt the Lord said to me, “There is nothing in the human condition that is not possible for God!” That means nothing at all. No healing is impossible. No financial challenge is impossible for God to overcome. No marriage or relationship problem is too big for God. The future is not too hard for God to deal with and neither is the past. Nothing is off the table if we are talking about almighty God!
I am not talking about focusing on a particular promise right now. I am a Word man and we have to get to that. Right now I believe God is saying something much more fundamental. I believe we must choose to accept that anything is possible. I believe we need to meditate on that truth until it becomes established in our hearts.
God told Joshua that to be successful he needed to meditate on the Word of God day and night. Part of the meaning of the word used for meditate is to mutter. I believe we need to begin to declare that all things are possible in God until it becomes so ingrained in our thinking that when we are challenged with impossible situations we automatically see that all things are possible. We need to come to the place where the impossible solution is not the last resort after exhausting the practical but it becomes our default position.
Until that happens we will not rise above the natural possibilities. The problem with allowing that to happen is that the natural holds no solution for what the world faces today. Our only true hope is the all-encompassing ability of God. Until we begin to see that as our normal position we will not see the solutions that God has for us.
Jesus puts only one qualification on all things being possible when he answers the father. The qualification is that we believe. All things are possible to anyone who believes. That is what we must do this year. The father was not without faith or he would not have come to Jesus. Jesus was not being critical of the father when he exhorted him to believe. He was simply stating the problem. He had faith, but his understanding that all things are possible when God is involved had been eroded by disappointment, discouragement and words of doubt and unbelief.
All of us have been disappointed. You may be able to give me many examples of why you are afraid to believe that all things are possible because of the things that are happening in your life right now. Our ears and eyes are bombarded with words and images that tell us God is not what he says he is. All of those things have combined to tell us that all things are not possible. Some things are possible. Other things just may not be possible. We need to use “wisdom.” However, true wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord and that means an understanding of just who he really is!
Let possibility rise in your thinking. Let your imagination loose and expand the horizons of your hope. Then faith can and will come and we will hear what God is going to do and we will be able to believe it.
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