Mark 6:5-6 “Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. (6) And He marvelled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching.”
Just as faith will allow us to receive from God so it is that unbelief will prevent us from receiving from God. When our Lord Jesus walked in the flesh, everywhere He went He healed the sick and cast out demons, for the scripture teaches us thatGod anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil (Acts 10:38). Nevertheless there was one town that Jesus ministered in where He was unable to perform any miraculous healings, which was His home town of Nazareth. In the above quoted passage of scripture the Holy Spirit reveals to us that our Lord “could” do no mighty work there, speaking about His hometown of Nazareth. And so when Jesus left that town, the blind people in that town were still blind. The lame and cripple people remained lame and crippled. The deaf in that town were still deaf. And yet in every other town where Jesus ministered they experienced great miracles. Some even had their dead raised back to life, but not the town of Nazareth. So why is it that Jesus was unable to perform any miracles of healing in the town in which He grew up? It was certainly God’s will to heal every disease in that town, for we have already seen that Jesus was anointed by God to do that very thing. And so God didn’t prevent them from receiving His healing power and Jesus didn’t prevent God’s healing power from flowing through Him. This same passage of scripture reveals to us that it was their own unbelief that prevented them from receiving from God and nothing else, for the scripture declares that Jesus marvelled at their unbelief. And so we see that just as faith will allow us to receive from God so it is that unbelief will prevent us from receiving from God. We saw earlier that Jesus also taught us the same truth, for He taught us that the one who has faith and does not doubt will receive from God (Matthew 21:21-22), thus clearly implying that the one who doubts and does not believe will not receive from God.
Michael E.B. Maher
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