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Not Enough Faith To Be Healed

In Mark 6:1 through 6 we see Jesus visit His home town of Nazareth .  Everyone there knew Him as Jesus the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Simon, Judas and Joseph.  To them He was just the guy who once lived down the street.  

Mark says that “Jesus was amazed with their lack of faith”, so for this reason He could not do many miracles.  He could only heal a few sick people.  I’ve heard some hyper-faith folk use this verse to point out that if you have “a lack of faith”, meaning, “if you don’t have  enough faith”, then Jesus can’t heal you.  These folk then say that you need to somehow get more faith before Jesus can heal you. 

I don’t believe we can “get more faith” as if faith is some kind of commodity that we can get more of.   That’s not what faith is all about.  Faith is trust.  Instead of trying to “get more faith”, we should simply learn to “trust Jesus more than we presently do”.  Faith is not a matter of striving to get more, but is a matter of resting and trusting Jesus instead of trusting our own human efforts.  (Heb. 3:7 – 4:14)    

Did these people in Nazareth really have “too little faith” to be healed as some hyper-faith folk suggest?  The answer is “no”.   The “lack of faith” Jesus commented on should not be seen as “little faith”, but should be seen as “no faith”.

These home town people simply didn’t believe who Jesus claimed to be and didn’t believe He could heal.  To them He was just that home-town guy who came back to visit.  Because of their unbelief very few people came to Jesus to be healed, and if they didn’t come to be healed, how could Jesus heal them?  This passage has nothing to do with having “little faith and needing more”.  It has everything to do with having “no faith and needing some”.  It’s as simple as that. 

This passage of Scripture can’t be used to promote the idea that one can’t be healed because of a lack of faith.  Little faith isn’t the issue here.  No faith is the issue.  Jesus just didn’t have the opportunity to heal because few people came to be healed.  Even a little faith in Jesus in this instance would have gone a long way towards lots of healings.  This is also true with us today.  Striving to get more faith isn’t really the issue  Simply handing over your life to Jesus is the issue.    

Just remember the parable of the mustard seed.  A little seed grew into a large plant.  So a little trust, a little faith goes a long way with Jesus.    

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