Mark 6:5-6a (NIV) He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith. Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village.

After all that Jesus has done and all the mercy and grace that He has shown to me, my desire is to not only worship Him, obey Him and do whatever He asks me to do, but I also want to get His attention by my level of faith and commitment to Him. I want to amaze Jesus by believing Him for the impossible, just like the Roman Centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant (Matthew 8:5-10) and the Syrophoenician woman whose daughter was demon possessed (Matthew 15:21-28). In both of the cases, Jesus was amazed at their faith.

There was another time that Jesus was amazed and that was when He went back to His hometown of Nazareth. He found that the people resented Him because they saw him grow up and knew His brothers and sisters. They were poised not to believe Him for much because of their bias and their jealousy of Him. The people of Nazareth, unfortunately, did not get to see Jesus do much there because of their lack of faith. Even though they had heard what He had done and was doing everywhere else, they refused to believe. Jesus must have shaken His head, knowing what the people of His hometown were missing out on. He left there to teach in other places and to greatly bless all who would believe in Him.

Nazareth was not the place to be if you wanted to experience Jesus’ full ministry. If you were sick, had a friend who was sick or demon-possessed or had any other kind of need that only God could meet, you would have had to meet Jesus in any other town but Nazareth. I heard a preacher say something that I had not heard before and that made me sad because it rang true in my heart. He likened the Church in this country to Nazareth. Although there are faithful believers here that do believe God for the impossible, a great number of Christians in this country don’t believe that Jesus does those things today. They either don’t believe it outright or are using as an excuse their belief that the miracles that Jesus did was only for the era of His ministry and the ministry of the apostles. The only problem is that Jesus said that we would do even greater things when we ask the Father in His name (John 14:12-14). I say and repeat what Jesus said, “According to your faith, let it be done to you (Matthew 9:29).” I believe what Jesus said. What about you? Let’s not amaze Jesus the wrong way by our lack of faith but instead, let’s believe Him for more so that people will know that Jesus is alive and active among His people and so that much more glory will go to His name. Let’s believe!

Pastor Joey Vazquez