The disciples spent three years in the presence of Jesus: God in the flesh. They sat under His teaching and lived with Him daily—studying His perfection. And yet, even though they had come to believe that He was the Christ, on their last night together, they ran into a wall of fear and unbelief.
All of us who believe in Jesus have what-I-call “pockets” of unbelief! In fact, it is one of Satan’s primary strategies to keep our pockets full of unbelief—“Satan, the god of this evil world, has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, so they are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News” (2 Cor. 4:4a). Satan wants to keep "believers" from fully believing!
When Jesus encountered a boy possessed by a spirit, the boy’s father asked Jesus “Do something if you can." Noting the father’s doubt, Jesus said “What do you mean, `If I can'? Anything is possible if a person believes." And the father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief” (Mark 9:22-24 NLT). And here is the real problem we “believers” deal with. We do believe but, still, we have doubts—pockets of unbelief. In these areas of unbelief we should pray “Lord, help me in my unbelief.” Though the Ephesian Christians were already great believers, still Paul prayed for God to open their eyes (unblind them) and to give them revelation in order to believe, even more, in the incredible greatness of God’s power (1:19).
I think just the title is awesome. There is such a need for most of us to overcome this sin that sets the limits for our own faith and for God to work in and through us mighty wonders. I think unbelief is like scattered energy. When we believe, we are focused, there is just this one thing that we put all of our thoughts on, desires, energy, and we trust only in Him who is able to bring to pass what we believe for; we have single-mindedness. When we believe, is like uniting all the forces for that very thing that we hope will come to pass -in any area of our lives, spiritually, physically, emotionally or mentally-.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for this posting, it opens our eyes to a crucial reality that hits to the core of our very lives, the fact of having a strong, unwawering, focused, firm faith, which is essential to our stability in life and our growth and confidence.
I think you have uncovered a reality in our lives, the fact that we need to get rid of this old garment of unbelief, acknowledge that we actually carry it, and expand our limits, and let God set these limits according to His will for us.
Just by reading the title ("Overcoming Unbelief") you can experience a liberation in your heart, you feel a freedom of having no limits, it's like our lives can go beyond anything we can ever imagine -it's like all of a sudden you are free to fly-. Overcoming unbelief leads us to Ephesians 3:20, where we live in the realm of the limitless possibilities of the grace of God.
I think the expression "unbelieving believers" also works to describe our unbelieving condition.
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