Set the Sail (Preparing for a Move of God) Sýnishorn

The Faith Necessity: Are You Faithless?

They say familiarity breeds contempt. This was certainly the case for the people of Jesus’ hometown Nazareth. These were the people that saw Jesus as a young boy, who’d watched him playing with his siblings, and who knew his parents Mary and Joseph… And they couldn’t reconcile their experience of knowing Jesus as a boy with his extraordinary miracles and teachings now! Perhaps they’d bought into the stereotype that ‘nothing good comes from Nazareth’ (John 1:46)!

This sense of familiarity dulled their faith and tragically limited Jesus’ willingness to perform miracles in their town. It’s not that Jesus ceased to be the powerful Son of God in that moment, but rather that there is something arresting about the power of unbelief and its limiting effect on the works of Jesus.

Only twice do the Gospels record that Jesus is amazed at faith: one account is about the faith of the Roman centurion in Luke 7 and the other is here in Nazareth – only this time Jesus is amazed at their lack of faith. I don’t know about you, but I never want that to be said of me!

The question we must ponder is: where is there a lack of faith on our part? Where has the danger of the familiar robbed us of our childlike belief in the raw and untamed power of God? Where has cynicism and pessimism choked out faith-fueled belief?

There’s a story associated with the Hebridean revival (1945) of towns who were resistant to the move of God in their region. They opposed the efforts of Duncan Campbell and others, and we’re told that the Holy Spirit simply passed over these towns. The lasting effects of non-revival are still seen today.

When Jesus comes, will he find faith in the earth (Luke 18:8)? Faith is necessary for revival, and it’s demonstrated most clearly in our prayers! Prayer is one of the primary ways we, motivated by faith, set the sail…