I Know Whom I Have Believed

May 19

“Then they brought to Him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on him,” Mark 7:32.

We know the outcome of the incident that is told to us in this passage of scripture. It is the same scenario that is played out time and again in the Gospels. The sick and lame and blind and deaf and demon possessed are brought to Jesus and He speaks to their affliction and they are delivered.

We are told that the same works done by our Lord when He walked the dusty streets of Galilee will be performed in response to our command. In John 14:12 Jesus tells us, “The works I have done, if you believe, you shall also do.” He makes it completely clear that if we will simply believe, the prayer we lay before God will be answered.

Why then are we hindered by unbelief? The answer lies in each of our hearts, but a broad generalization as to our failure to attain the answers to our supplications might be the fact that we have so many other alternatives. We don’t have to put our faith in the Lord in order to see miracles.

We can attain them in a doctor’s office or under a surgeon’s scalpel or from a bottle of medication. Of course, it is our prayer that the doctors, surgeons and medications will be effective in remedying our condition, but we certainly needn’t rely solely upon Jesus to deliver us from our problem.

Consider the deaf man in the introductory verse whose situation was 180 degrees from ours. He had no hearing whatsoever and he had no hope of gaining it through any natural means. There were no hearing specialists who offered a solution to his dilemma. They couldn’t simply remove the wax from his ears or insert a hearing aid and enable him to hear. There was NO remedy for his condition. No remedy but Jesus.

When the Lord is our only option, we are more inclined to place our total faith in Him. When He is our only hope, we place all our hope upon Him, and in the power of that hope, in the presence of that faith, He moves and we are set free from what besets.

It is that mustard seed faith (see Matthew 17:20) that produces miracles; it is that tiny, seemingly insignificant faith that “moves mountains,” (see Mark 11:23. It is the faith that says, “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him,” II Timothy 1:12.

Lord, help us to appropriate that mustard seed faith so we can see mountains topple in response to our prayers! It is in Your mighty, matchless name we ask, Jesus. Amen.