When Jesus had finished telling these stories and illustrations, he left that part of the country. He returned to Nazareth, his hometown. When he taught there in the synagogue, everyone was amazed and said, “Where does he get this wisdom and the power to do miracles?” Then they scoffed, “He’s just the carpenter’s son, and we know Mary, his mother, and his brothers—James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. All his sisters live right here among us. Where did he learn all these things?” And they were deeply offended and refused to believe in him. Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his own family.” And so he did only a few miracles there because of their unbelief. [Matthew 13.53-58]
When we lose sight of Jesus as "God With Us" we are on the path to eventually abandon our faith.
When we view Jesus as just a man instead of a God-Man On Mission, we will miss Him as the Messiah.
While we may say, "We would never do that!", does not the absence of miracles today decry our unbelief just as it did in Jesus' hometown among His own people?
No doubt, it would have been easy enough to so humanize Jesus in His human state of being, except that His teaching and miracles heralded His deity. In other words, what was seen and heard from Jesus as God was more important than the fact that He was a man in the situation described above. Remember John the Baptist's inquiry?
John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?” Jesus told them, “Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen— the blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.” And he added, “God blesses those who do not fall away because of me.” [Matthew 11.2-6]
The Scripture accounts quoted here are evidence that we can easily underestimate Jesus. It has everything to do with hearing and seeing Jesus in the supernatural understanding the Holy Spirit provides when our hearing and seeing is quickened by our intentional turning away from idolatry! Unless we see Jesus as God and singularly submit to Him ALONE as per the first three of the Ten Commandments AND His own, "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me." statement (Matthew 16.24, Mark 8.34, Luke 9.23), then we are in idolatry and we will live only as powerful as the idols we worship:
Their idols are merely things of silver and gold, shaped by human hands. They have mouths but cannot speak, and eyes but cannot see. They have ears but cannot hear, and noses but cannot smell. They have hands but cannot feel, and feet but cannot walk, and throats but cannot make a sound. And those who make idols are just like them, as are all who trust in them. [Psalm 115.4-8]
The idols of the nations are merely things of silver and gold, shaped by human hands. They have mouths but cannot speak, and eyes but cannot see. They have ears but cannot hear, and mouths but cannot breathe. And those who make idols are just like them, as are all who trust in them. [Psalm 135.15-18]
No doubt, the modern idols of debt, insurance, medicine and technology have attained some level of effectiveness, and for this reason, they are blasphemously mistaken as the work of God (Third Commandment). But! their secularization (humanization) of provision, protection, health and conveniences (all promised by God), have yielded offense against God that has led to unbelief in God - God With Us, Jesus - just like Matthew 13.53-58 describes!
Idols, because they are the work of man's hands/ingenuity, humanize that which God said was His work (provision, protection, health and conveniences), thus causing offense against God that ultimately yields powerless unbelief. And this is where we find ourselves today - immersed in the idols of debt, insurance, medicine and technology, unknowingly (albeit inadvertently) offended at God, witnessing no indisputable miracles because of our unbelief. AND the most damning thing is that we blaspheme the Name of God in attributing the erratic successes of debt, insurance, medicine and technology to God as if that makes our idolatry okay (Exodus 20.7).
So... if we allow our familiarity with Jesus the man to obstruct our hailing of God With Us, we have missed Messiah altogether. Our familiarity with Jesus only as a man, in a world full of man's solutions, puts us at odds (in offense) to Jesus as God With Us, leaving us only to the hit-and-miss successes (erroneously called miracles) of our human-influenced, man-made idols.
I apologize if this is confusing. However, I believe if a person will make a real priority of understanding that God is Jealous, most of what is said here will come into focus. Idolatry was a problem all through the Old Testament. Idolatry remains as much a problem today and even more so if we fail to see and hear Jesus in His "God With Us" presence. The lack of indisputable miracles today indicts us of a familiarity with "man" that prevents us from faith that pleases God.
Father, I know what is said here is true according to Your Word. I also know that human reasoning will always put us in conflict with faith that pleases You. May we find the courage to rid ourselves of idols no matter how unpopular it makes us - even among our own people, the Church. May there be a renewed understanding of Jesus as God With Us with what we "see and hear" as indisputable evidence. So be it.
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