Mark 10:27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

The Japanese specifies that Jesus looked at them steadily as He said this. Was He wanting to see their reaction, or wanting to be sure this got through to them? Probably both. This simple, fundamental truth is one we forget all too often. Anthropologists correctly observe that in general, religious conceptions of God, or gods, are based on human models, only “faster, higher, stronger,” as the motto for the Olympics has it. The atheists among them conclude that God doesn’t exist, but there’s an essential fallacy to that. The problem doesn’t lie with God, but with our trying to imagine Him, instead of accepting what He has revealed of Himself through the Scriptures and through His Son. God had to spell it out to Isaiah: “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9) We are very quick to look at ourselves and then at the situation and then say, God can’t fix that. That’s simply not true! We have an immediate example of that in this church right now, with a couple in their 70’s clearly and beautifully born again as spiritual babies in Christ, to the utter amazement and delight of their son in his 40’s. He has said repeatedly that he had essentially written his parents off, that they would never come to Christ, and right now they are an inspiration to the whole rest of the church.

I’ve got to remember and apply this myself, instead of just haranguing the church members over it. It is true that it is much easier to believe God for a situation when we are at some remove from it. That is why it’s so important to pray for one another. However, God wants us all to believe that He can do anything in our lives, and not just in the lives of others. I need to be an example of faith, not trying to generate it on my own, because no one can do that, but receive it from God with childlike simplicity. Only then will I be able to lead others to do the same.

Father, thank You again for all You are doing in this church. Thank You for the service yesterday and for the farewell party that followed. Thank You for Your faithfulness to speak through me. Thank You for the abundant expressions of love that were poured out on the one leaving, and for all that You have done in and through him in the three years he has been part of this church. I pray not only for Your perfect provision for him in every area, but that You would give him the faith to trust You for that provision ahead of time. Help him grasp the magnificence of Your love for him, so that he will not hold back from any of what You want to do through him, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!