“Everyone
was amazed by his gracious words that came from His lips. How can this be? …
Isn’t this Joseph’s son?’” (Luke 4:22, NLT).
How
is it possible to be amazed in a moment and to become bitter, cynical or
judgmental almost immediately? How is it possible in the very same moment for
others to travel from amazement to belief? This happens in our living as the acceptance
or rejection of Christ is played out in our believing or declining to believe in
the person of Jesus and the gift of salvation and abiding that He brings. It is in this quandary, in this crux of the
moment where belief teeters in our living and our experience; we stand, seeing
and sensing the realms of heavenly through the eyes of our earthy
reasoning. It is here, as we choose to believe and to believe again and again that faith lives, sustains and grows.
It
happens in our acceptance of the Christian faith and it happens in our daily reality as we live out our Christian faith. Faith travels vast
distances in the moment, when it first believes. Faith at other times, can find
the distance from believing to trusting to overcoming, quite vast and tedious yet faith is beyond sufficient to carry us as we believe and trust. Faith often travels vast distances each and
every time it believes again and again in the face of hardships or difficulties.
Faith travels the vast distance of abandoning
the accepted, the seen and the ordinary for the extraordinary, the unseen and
the impossible. Our faith must believe all things are possible in the power of our Savior and care of our Shepherd. Faith can joyously and abruptly find delight and truth or faith can move slowly strengthening as it trusts and obeys. It can be solid and secure and it can be tenuous but always it must
believe in the unknown and unseen.
This happens as faith accepts the unseen while
letting go of the obvious. Faith can quickly clear any hurdle or barrier on the
course directly in front of it as it believes and faith can climb directly
and purposefully up the roughest and dangerous mountain trail as it trusts and follows through its believing. Faith as belief comes
alive as it follows in trusting obedience, the one in whom faith believes. As Christians,
our faith is in the Christ that saves and the Christ that abides. We can do all things through Him as we believe,
follow and trust in Him in all of our days.
Jesus
Christ stands before us as He stood before the people of His hometown. His
proclamation of His being “Good News,” freedom, healing and sight remains as
powerful and relevant to us as it was to the people of Nazareth. There was amazement in that moment so long ago in the synagogue of Nazareth but most could
not believe in who Jesus was; to come into the faith of what He could give. It is
now as it was then. Most may be amazed by Jesus Christ but some will not come into the faith of what He can give. We must believe in
Him for faith to be our life. Whether it is our initial believing or in our
believing again and again in who Jesus Christ is and what He can do; our faith
comes alive and is of substance and power as we believe. As we believe, our faith in Jesus
Christ can travel the vast distance of being more than sufficient in our
immediate needs to His doing the impossible in any given moment. Faith does travel a vast distance in the
moment it believes.
“The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news
to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering
of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim
the year of the Lord's favor” (Luke 4:18-19, ESV).
Suggested Scripture reading ... Luke 4
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