“Lord, help thou my belief”.
In the gospel of Mark chapter 9, it records a story of a father on hearing that nothing was impossible to him that believes after seeing the miraculous delivery of his son, cried out at his unbelieving heart: “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief”.
On more than one occasion the disciples of Jesus asked our Lord to increase their faith, forgive their unbelief and to help them to believe for nothing was impossible with God.
After Pentecost, the power to bear witness and to operate in the miraculous came to the early church such that their faith was relentless and unquenchable.
They healed the sick, performed miracles and even raised the dead. On one occasion a local church refused to bury a church sister who had died prematurely.
Instead, they dressed her, not for the grave but for life, placed her on a bed and went and fetched Apostle Peter who was nearby to come pray.
They would have prayed for her yet it did not stop them calling Peter to pray also.
Peter duly came, just like Jesus who came to the home of Lazarus four days after his death. Peter spoke to God and then spoke to the dead sister commanding her back to life. God heard Peter’s prayer and his faith in the name of Jesus brought the dead sister back to life. See Acts chapter 9 for the full story.
The title of the blog is “help thou my belief” because increasingly I am finding too many believers are critical of those who believe God for the impossible. Instead of encouraging or asking God to help them believe it’s easier to criticise those who believe. We must be wise, where is the power that the early church had? These comments are made by people who really don’t believe by acting but only hypothetically.
I have been in too many services where there are comments after comments, song after song all attesting to the power of God and yet there are sick folks in the midst who are ignored. The main reason for this lack of faith is the low priority given to the word of faith in too many meetings.
Too many services are dominated by singing: the moderator, choirs, the congregation and preachers so there is very little time for the word of faith. Furthermore, the word always come at the very end after hours of “other stuff” so by the time what is passed off as the word is given the saints are tired and the unsaved want to go home. The poor preacher then is expected to give catchphrases, homilies and slogans which are insufficient to produce faith.
In my travels as a preacher, where singing is in another language and there is no choir and musical instruments I use the time to build faith and always without exception, God manifests his power to save, heal and work miracles. Sometimes the miracle is immediate but as often it is over time. The book of Revelation opens with the Apostle John being in the spirit. He is all alone, no choir or music to pump him up but he steps into the world of the Spirit.
Let us keep believing God for all things are possible to him that believes. Another reason people are sometimes unwilling to believe despite their protestations of faith is because not every person or situation we pray for will be successful in our terms.
Daniel prayed but still ended up in the lion’s den. His three brothers ended up in the fiery furnace. Stephen was stoned to death, James along with nine of the original twelve disciples were martyred for their faith. Paul and practically all the early apostles were similarly martyred for their faith. In the case of Paul he like John the Baptist before him was beheaded. How ignominious.
Jesus healed lepers but not every leper in the city or country. Jesus raised the dead but many still had to bury their dead. Jesus also raised Lazarus from the dead after being in the tomb four days but stopped short of raising others from the grave.
Let us believe God and keep on doing so but we cannot guarantee that everyone we pray for will be miraculously healed or brought back from the dead. This is not our prerogative, that’s God’s. Ours is to believe.
Make room for the word of God in our services. With the word comes faith. When faith is in the heart of the preacher, the congregation and the people we will see the power of God. No histrionics, no hype and certainly no fakery.
Our platform is the world and our congregation the people.
The Lord’s servant.
Lloyd Denny