Miracles and faith and unbelief

Our pastor is doing a series on miracles. This last sunday he contrasted the effect of belief and unbelief on miracles using two case studies from the gospels.

The first case was the people of Jesus' hometown. In Mark 6, Jesus came to Nazereth and began to teach the people. But they took offense at him. In their pride they could not accept that he was more than the son of Joseph and Mary. The text of Scripture says he was not able to do any miracles there and he was amazed at their lack of faith.

The second case is found in Luke 7. There was a centurion who heard Jesus was coming to town. The centurion's servant was sick and about to die. The centurion was so humbled before Jesus that he didn't even want to trouble Jesus to come to him. He sent elders in his place and told Jesus that all he had to do was to say the word and his servant would be healed. Jesus was amazed at his faith and his servant was healed from that hour.

Seems to me I see a couple of extremes in the church. On one extreme any unanswered prayer is attributed to a lack of faith. On the other extreme, an unanswered prayer is NEVER attributed to a lack of faith. The first extreme can be motivated by a judgmental spirit. The second tries so hard not to offend or make a person feel bad that the unbelief is never addressed.

I think I tend to err on the later side. But I can not avoid the inevitable conclusion that Scripture teaches that faith and unbelief do affect God's hand in answering prayer.

I think one of the problems is that faith is often misunderstood. It is sometimes seen as an entity in itself. As if it is the faith itself that works some type of magic and is some sort of sign of self righteousness. This is where faith is viewed as a force. So there is a direct correlation between the faith a person has and the power to see prayer answered.

I think this is a gross misunderstanding of faith. Faith is something that looks to another. Faith is when we consider another faithful and so we trust in them. The people of Nazereth did not lack some type of spiritual force. They just did not trust Jesus. They did not like him for claiming to be more than just a carpenter. The centurion on the other hand was in awe of the Lord, had heard of his miracles and was humbled before his greatness. He trusted that Jesus was who he said he was and could do miracles because of it.

So when dealing with prayer, either mine or another, my focus should not be whether or not enough faith is involved, but rather look to Jesus in awe and humility trusting in His authority. If my prayer is not answered, I have to trust that there is a good sovereign reason and if it pleases the Lord to make that reason known to me. But if indeed I am trusting in the name of Jesus, I will see amazing things happen!