Did you see the way that Jesus revealed the hearts of people
in these miracles?
·
The storm at sea, while Jesus was sleeping,
revealed not only the fear of the disciples but their lack of faith. Jesus did not
let them simply say, we were afraid. The real problem was unbelief.
·
With the demon-possessed man it might be easy to
see how Jesus revealed the heart of that man.
His problem was that evil spirits controlled his entire life. Jesus couldn’t call Him to faith as long as
evil had such a grip on him. So Jesus
delivered Him, in a highly unusual way, and the man came to faith, so much so
that he wanted to stay with Jesus.
·
But Jesus goes beyond the man and reveals the
hearts of the people of the Gadarenes.
They were afraid, which is amazing in that what Jesus did was to relieve
them of a constant problem; no more was the crazy
guy who lived in the cemetery a problem for them. So why did they fear? Of course it lies in Jesus’ sending the
demons into the pigs. They may have been
angry that Jesus ruined someone’s livelihood; but what they feared was having
someone around like Jesus who had such control and could bring about such
instant change. They loved the world and
were happy to keep things as they were and thus could not have such a One
around that they could not manage. Their
unbelieving hearts were revealed.
·
With the woman who touched Jesus’ robe it is not
the heart of the woman that is the issue.
Jesus acknowledged her faith, not her unbelief. But there was unbelief in Peter and those with him (v45)? Peter called Jesus Master (Grk. epistata), a
term used only in Luke, and usually by Peter or another disciple questioning
Jesus. For example, it is in Lk. 8:24
twice, Master, Master, we are perishing;
and in Lk. 5:5 when Peter at first questions Jesus’ command to let the nets
down (Master, we have toiled all night
and caught nothing; nevertheless …).
Perhaps the disciples, given great privilege and authority by Jesus, are
still struggling to have faith by which they will trust Jesus without
explanation or visible assurance.
·
In raising the girl Jesus revealed the unbelief
of the crowd who ridiculed His judgment that she is not dead, but sleeping.
They knew what they knew; but they didn’t know what He knew. Unbelief is like that. Without faith in Christ our knowledge of
situations and solutions is woefully lacking.
Here is the point. Jesus is the revealer of hearts, as Simeon
indicated. And what He is doing in our
lives and how He is going about being
El Shaddai in our lives is being done in such a way that the unbelief that
still lurks in the shadows will be revealed.
Better now than at the judgment seat of Christ where there will be no
secrets! Rather than complaining about
our problems let us use them to see what He sees within us and let us then
learn Christ.
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