Wednesday, January 31, 2007
I have some friends who love to fish, and in their honor I have to tell you this great fisherman story I heard from my friend Ravi Zacharias. It seems that two men were out fishing in separate boats. And the one watched the other with a growing curiosity because he would catch a fish and keep it, then catch another fish and throw it away. And he continued this with catch after catch. The really strange part was that it was always the big ones that this man threw away. Finally, the man watching all this couldn't contain his curiosity, so he called out the obvious question, "How come you're throwing away the big ones?" The man answered back, "Oh, because I only have an eight-inch frying pan!"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Prepared for Something Small."
I guess if small is all you're prepared for, then small is all you'll get. That's what the people of Nazareth found out when Jesus came home. In Mark 6:1, our word for today from the Word of God, the Bible says, "Jesus went to His hometown ... He began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard Him were amazed.
"'Where did this man get these things?' they asked. 'What's this wisdom that has been given Him, and that He even does miracles? Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon?' ... And they took offense at Him. Jesus said to them, 'Only in His hometown, among His relatives and in His own house, is a prophet without honor.' He could not do any miracles there, except lay His hands on a few sick people and heal them. And He was amazed at their lack of faith." The King James Version says bluntly, "He could do no mighty work there because of their unbelief."
Let me tell you, this is a pretty scary incident for those of us who are church folks. Because the people who knew the most about Jesus expected the least and they got it! They had a very small frying pan, and it wasn't big enough for the kinds of things Jesus can do. Nazareth was the one place Jesus went where they had to settle for the natural and they missed the supernatural. And the scary part is that today we're Nazareth. We Bible-believers know a lot about Jesus, just like His neighbors in Nazareth. We analyze things just like they did. But those kinds of people are often so close, so used to Jesus, they put Him in a box, limiting Him to work the way they've always seen Him work before.
But maybe our being "practical" and "sensible" - our avoidance of anything that might seem "radical" or "different" - is why so many Christians have so little power. We don't pray for God-sized interventions; we don't make plans that are so big they will fail if God isn't in them. We go to Bible studies, church services, and youth groups. We argue theology, prophecy, and spiritual gifts. We get involved in a merry-go-round of Christian activities, but we don't expect the supernatural! And we're mired, therefore, in spiritual mediocrity.
In reality, the more we learn about Jesus, the more we should believe Him for! We serve, we worship an awesome, all-powerful Savior who is a miracle-worker! But we miss His miracles because we don't believe Him for them! It's time to get a bigger frying pan and let the Lord Christ fill it with something bigger than you ever dreamed!