Today I went walking along the creek near where I live. I love walking there because our city has built a wonderful running/walking path along the creek, and if you follow the sidewalks you can count on walking or running two miles. They also built a fantastic community center with a running/walking track that I use for bad weather days. Kudos to our city for these fine facilities. I personally prefer to walk the creek whenever I can because it is never boring. I try to vary my walks at different times of day so I can meet new people, and see new things. This morning the robins were out in force. I didn't see one sparrow, but there had to be over a hundred robins busily looking for whatever bugs were in the grass. Every time I see scenes like this, I am reminded of God's tender care. As I've often said, if He cares this much for a sparrow or robin, then how much more does he care about us. It can be a hard thing to wrap our head around if we let it. Inversely, we can often look at our troubles and wonder what did we do wrong to deserve them? We might find ourselves scanning the heavens for the clouds to split open and pour out His favor upon us.
Yesterday, Pastor Tony preached about having four kinds of faith. He's bounced up against this thought before, and it is a challenging message. It is even more challenging when it seems as if the last four years have been a series of non-stop terminal illnesses, deaths, and even three deaths due to COVID. We've been a fellowship that has seen healing after healing. We've experienced miracles that defy explanation, and we've seen the hand of God provide when there was no obvious way for the provision to come. We own a 27,000 sf building paid for in less than 24 years, while at the same time giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to missions, and charities. What's even more amazing is that our population has never exceeded a hundred people. FAITH, we have it in spades, and that is not said in pride. It is a fact. Not one person in our fellowship is afraid to drop what they are doing and offer a prayer of faith when we learn of something needing our attention, AND God's attention. (I know He knows all things, but we are still encouraged to pray.) There are men and women in our fellowship who devote an hour (or more) every morning in prayer.
Pastor Tony talked about faith that says: God Can do it. He also talked about a faith that says: God is Able to do it, and he talked about a faith that just simply says; God does it. There is another faith that sparked me to write this blog; it is a faith that says God will do it. He had us turn to Matthew 8:1-4 and the story of the man Jesus healed of leprosy. I'm not going to quote the passage in this blog because I believe that looking it up for yourself and reading with me will help you to remember it. The story begins with Jesus coming down from a mountain to be greeted with large crowds of people. He wasn't in a crowded busy town. Along the road a leper suddenly leapt into his path and knelt down to worship him. NOW, here comes the question I believe everyone of us has asked more than once. "Lord if you are willing, You can make me clean." Please, note carefully that the man made his declaration of faith and said: "You can make me clean!" The leper was declaring the first kind of faith which is 'Jesus Can!' Personally, I think the leper had already heard about the many wondrous healings of Jesus. The faith for healing was already there. Many of us are right there with the leper. We've seen the healing power of Jesus, as well as the deliverances, and the miracles without natural explanation. I've seen all of these things in my sixty years of living for Christ, and yet there is one thing that I've found myself and others asking time after time; "Lord, if you are willing, you can..." with the unspoken "will you?" sitting on the edge of our declaration of faith.
NOW would be a good time to point out the obvious. The leper was an outcast of society. They had to announce to everyone that they were 'unclean.' They couldn't go to religious meetings, and they weren't allowed to participate in the daily social life of their families and friends. The question the Leper was asking was far more powerful than his declaration of faith. Will you touch me? Will you risk everything? I truly believe the real question in this story is; How much do you love me? Are you really who you say you are? Are you willing to get your hands dirty for me? Are you willing to touch me? I believe he asked this question because he'd heard that Jesus often touched the people He prayed for. He would sometimes embrace those He healed. The leper was declaring his uncleaness, while at the same time asking to be free of it.
We're the same way, but we just don't have the social stigma that the leper had. Worse yet, (and I've been guilty of this in the past,) we'll ask someone standing in the 'healing line' "do you know Jesus?" Or we'll ask "are you saved?" I wish I could yank back every time I've uttered those words, or had those thoughts. Jesus never asked them. We even ask them of ourselves as we seek healing, or deliverances. "God is there anything more I need to do?" "Have I done anything that would make me unworthy of your healing power?" The unspoken; "Lord are you willing?" is said often. When Jesus walked this earth, He was healing incarnate. This was born out of the Father's compassion, His tenderness, loving kindness, and love. Yet, we'll cheapen it with our own fears of not being worthy.
Jesus gave the leper the answer he wanted when He said "I am willing." BUT that wasn't the healing moment. The leper knew that Jesus had to touch him just as much as the woman with the issue of blood knew she had to touch the hem of Jesus' garment. Whether we realize it or not, or whether we're willing to admit it or not, everyone of us has a qualifier that we know will satisfy our faith. Sometimes Jesus responds to our qualifier, and then other times He shocks us by grinding spit mud into our eyes, or giving us a wet Willie. Sometimes he says go jump in a muddy stream, or tells us tear a hole in the roof so we can let down our brother. The leper knew Jesus could heal him, he just wasn't sure Jesus would.
A quick personal example of what I'm talking about is something that happened to my mother. She was in her early seventies and had just moved to Harrison when she was diagnosed with colon cancer. After about two weeks of being silent about it, she asked me to come over and talk with her. "Dave, I've always heard God before. You know that. I believe God can and does heal, but I can't hear Him. I don't know whether I'm going to die of this or not. He isn't talking to me. I know you talk to God and you hear his voice, will you ask Him what I'm supposed to do?"
Of course I will. And, I did. Every day for two weeks I asked God about Mom. She never once asked me to pray for her healing, but that was something she didn't know if I had the gift for. So, I prayed. It took two weeks, but it came one night while I was in the shower. "Tell her, the cancer won't kill you, but you will have to go through it, but I will be on the other side." It wasn't the kind of thing you want to tell your frail mother, but it was all God gave me. It was her way of asking 'are you willing?' Jesus was willing. She went through a year of Chemo, and radiation therapy. At the end of that year they removed a monstrous tumor. She lived to be 85 years old and didn't die of cancer. We have to know when we are asking Jesus if he is willing. I have a good brother in the Lord who has been through hell and back with circumstances beyond his control. He once told me that 'He'd done all he could do, and didn't know what more he could do.' God's willingness isn't based on what we do, but on what we believe. Even then, in the midst of the fire, you're left standing in the fire, with Jesus standing beside you. So, resolve within yourself now, before you step into the fire, that Jesus will be there, and that He is willing to be there.