If

 …22“It often throws him into the fire or into the water, trying to kill him. But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 23“If You can?” echoed Jesus. “All things are possible to him who believes!” 24Immediately the boy’s father cried out, “I do believe; help my unbelief!”  Mark 9:22-24

The above Scripture relates the discourse between Jesus and a father whose son suffered demonic possession. His need was desperate, and he sought Jesus for help, yet wasn't fully sure that the One he sought could do what his heart so longed for. In the father we can see so much of ourselves. In Jesus, we see the heart of our Lord for us, that we believe, and His willingness to help us believe when the struggle to do so is so difficult. 

Coupled with this Scripture are three statements from Chris Tiegreen that I think relate to what is happening in it. I share them with you today......

"Miracles must be done in the presence of desperation and faith." Few of us want to reach the place of desperation, the place where we've exhausted all our own efforts. The place where all we have left is Him. This is fertile ground for a miracle. When Jesus is all we have, we find that Jesus is all we need. When we're done trusting in ourselves, relying on our abilities and strength, we find the wonder of who Christ is. We may, like the father, struggle with unbelief, but in our desperation, we bring that unbelief to Him. We surrender it, and our faith, weak as it may be, is placed in Him. In response, we learn, experience, and believe that all things really are possible for the one who dares to believe....and who dares to admit their desperation. Father, in these desperate days, give us a desperate faith!

"Our faith should not be realistic." We are constantly, even in the church, asked to adjust our faith to realistic expectations. Rationalism, logic, and what our intellect tells us to be possible, have displaced true faith. Faith that beholds the miraculous. We have placed limitations on what we expect or believe He can do, what He will do. We know that scoffers exist in the world, those who ridicule the very idea of the miraculous. The scoffer has also found his way into the church. Well meaning friends try to protect us from what they see as sure disappointment. So we don't pray or believe for great things. We pray for what we believe can be possible. We know Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. We know that Christ Himself rose from the dead. What credence would we give a report of one being raised from the dead today? This is so when it comes to healings, deliverances, and the complete reversal of impossible situations. If Doctors, politicians, and whoever the particular "experts" may be cannot accomplish it, then it can't be done. Like the Pharisees who beheld Christ and His miracles, we don't believe the God we say we believe in. Almighty God! May we have a faith that is never realistic in men's eyes, but completely realistic in Yours!

"Raise your expectations to reflect His reality." Just how real is He to you? We may pray to Him, speak of Him, honor Him, and worship Him, but in all of it, how real is He to us? Someone said that we often talk of Him as if He's not in the room. This is because His reality hasn't really penetrated our day to day life. Scripture says that in Him we live, move, and have our being, but this seems far more a theory to us than a reality. We believe that He is there, with us, but our sense of Him being there is so often dull at best. Our circumstances and needs seem far more real than He does, and our expectations of Him fall in line with that. They are minimal because our sense of Him is minimal. We can see this so clearly in our current culture. The darkness and growing evil is more real to us than He is. We're intimidated by it, and though we say we believe in an Almighty God, we have strong doubts as to whether He can and will turn the tide of it all. We sing that our God is an awesome God, but do our expectations of Him reflect our trust in that? I want to grow ever stronger in my belief and trust that He is and that all the sin and darkness of 10,000 years cannot make a dent in the greatness and power of my God. Whatever our expectations may be in our God, may they reflect the reality of who He says He is, and not the enemy's lies, or our own unbelief. May we know in whom we have believed, and may we be persuaded that He will keep, and do, all that we have trusted Him for, and beyond.

We are living in a time previously unthinkable and once thought impossible. Humankind is proving, as it has so many times before, it has no means of combating the steady collapse of our culture and world. Impossibilities are everywhere around us. Our only hope is to seek the miraculous God is Ruler over all impossibilities. The Apostle Paul said that our last and greatest enemy is death. Death has been conquered in Jesus Christ. That means death, in all of it's forms has been conquered in Jesus Christ. May that be the reality we live in. May there be no "if" in our belief system. All things ARE possible for the one who believes.

Blessings,

Pastor O