1 “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown, and among his relatives, and in his own house.” Familiarity breeds contempt.
“He was not able to do a miracle there, except to lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.” -- Our unbelief hinders God’s miracles.
2 Jesus delegated authority to his disciples. Not their own authority, but they could still preach repentance, cast out demons, and heal.
As noted in the recent Supernatural Encounter, it’s not the celebrity preacher who has the power to heal -- it’s God, and His Holy Spirit can enable _any_ of us to become miracle workers.
Is our faith the limiting factor?
Yet, the other side is the great evil of blaming the victim, “You are not healed because you don’t have enough faith” which has shipwrecked the faith of many.
Also the other evil of saying that you must not use medicine and rely on “Doctor Jesus” alone -- a false teaching which has caused misery and death even here in Malaysia. Then the victims are blamed, “Oh, your child died because of your lack of faith. You just didn’t trust Jesus enough to heal her. It is your own fault of harbouring doubt.” How cruel!
3 Jesus walking on water to the disciples: I remember Pastor Daniel Ho (DUMC)’s joke, the disciples in the boat saw Jesus walking towards them in the storm and cried, “Hantu!!!” And Jesus replied, “Bukan, Tuhan.” 😜
This was right after the multiplication of the loaves & fish, and Mark notes “They were completely astonished, because they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.”
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