4/29/2021

Faith, a devotion that we have talked about before but never have spoken about the faith that people had put into Jesus when He walked the Earth before His death, resurrection, and ascension into Heaven. I have read a few different stories, in the span of three chapters of Matthew, on the people who had complete faith that Jesus could heal their sick. The first one starts out in Matthew 9:18-19, and 23-25 as a ruler came to Jesus to worship Him and plead with Him to heal his daughter, who has just recently passed on. The ruler knew that Jesus could bring his daughter back and had so much faith that he pleaded before a crowd, out in the open, for Jesus to heal his daughter. His effort and faith was paid off with Jesus coming to his house and healing the child. What had me interested in was the story of Jesus being rejected by Nazarene and having very few people to heal that day in Matthew 13:54-58. Why is that so? Because the people there had no faith in Jesus because they didn't believe in Him and they were offended against Him and His teachings. As a result Jesus could only heal a very few people during His stay there. It's hard being rejected by the town that you grew up in but it's also very much harder to preach the gospel to those who want nothing to do with you. The gospel states to love your enemies and hate the sin but how can we love those who reject us? How can we have faith in them? I think that's where Jesus came in, to give us faith that if we are patient and let the Lord deal with this, our efforts will be paid off. See, Jesus's siblings didn't believe that He was the Messiah, but it wasn't until probably after His death and resurrection that they started to believe, I mean James and Judas wrote the two books in the New Testament. If Jesus's siblings can believe, then why can't everyone else in this world have faith and believe that Jesus is alive and is coming for us all soon to take us to an eternal place in Heaven. "For God so loved the World, that He gave His Only Begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." - John 3:16

Amen