Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, “Why couldn’t we cast out that demon?” “You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.” [Matthew 17.19-20]
And, there you have it!
Jesus said nothing is impossible to him who believes.
“What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked. “Anything is possible if a person believes.” [Mark 9.23]
The Bible is not unclear about why bad things happen or why good things fail to happen. However, people, in their incredible pride, refuse to humbly acknowledge what the Bible says!
Consequently, most Christians today have simply resigned to "the facts" of mental and physical illness, poverty, and turmoil. Everything Jesus said the devil does (kill, steal, and destroy), the Church has largely embraced as God's doing (God's will) citing scriptures declaring God's superior knowledge over man's.
It all sounds real good except for the small matter of the overriding theme of the entire Bible, Redemption!
The one thing Jesus prayed for mankind from the Cross was this:
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” [Luke 23.34a]
They what? "...they don’t know what they are doing."
But He forgave them anyway??? Yes!, it is called Redemption - it is the Grace of God and it is accessed by faith.
So, when we do not know what God is doing because we are of inferior knowledge, faith brings Redemption anyway, and “Anything is possible if a person believes.”
Most people simply refuse to accept this. Instead, with their human reasoning they determine that they didn't do anything wrong, so, there must be some unknown facet of God that does bad things to people for undisclosed reasons. They blatantly ignore all the Bible references to God and His good character as defined over and over throughout the entire Bible. Just look up the phrase "God (or, the Lord) is good..." and see how often is it used!
So our inability to perform miracles is not complicated. It is simply a faith failure. While it shouldn't need to be pointed out here, it still serves us well to acknowledge there exists a difference between genuine faith and selfish folly. Selfish folly is NOT faith regardless how one attempts to call it such. Either way, when we are unable to do the same works Jesus did, it is a faith failure on our part - and, as such requires repentance - repentance for our lack of faith or repentance for our selfish folly.
Oh, but we don't like to repent, do we?
Moved any mountains lately?
Father, help me to believe. I declare here that the failures in my life to do the works of Jesus are MY failures - please forgive me. And, please forgive me for selfish motives that I have called faith. May my testimony be one of genuine faith and faithfulness.
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