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Scripture for the day: Matthew 13:58 Now he did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.
Thought for the day: Jesus had been traveling about, healing the sick, raising the dead, preaching the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven and was accepted almost everywhere he went. He was gaining a tremendous reputation among the people as a great prophet and teacher. Suddenly he decided to go home, perhaps to spend a bit of time with his mother, Mary, and his half brothers and sisters. When he came to the Synagogue on the Sabbath to teach, he was suddenly dishonored by those who knew him best. They just couldn’t believe that this Jesus, the one they remembered as the skinny kid from the carpenter’s shop at the edge of town could now be this prophet everyone was talking about. They just couldn’t get beyond what they knew of him from the past to accept what he’d become. So, “because of their unbelief” he didn’t do many miracles in that place. What a loss that was for them! How much they missed simply because they couldn’t bring themselves to step over the precipice of faith and believe what they could see for themselves was true.
How often we find ourselves in the same situation! How often we profess to know beyond a doubt that the Lord is able to do something for us and yet shrink back from stepping out in faith because we just can’t bring ourselves to that point of abandonment He requires before the miracle can take place. And how often did Jesus look someone in the eye and ask, “Do you believe I can do this?” Ken Davis tells this story of faith tested:
“The law of the pendulum is: A pendulum can never return to a point higher than the point from which it was released. Because of friction and gravity, when the pendulum returns, it will fall short of its original release point. Each time it swings it makes less and less of an arc, until finally it is at rest. This point of rest is called the state of equilibrium, where all forces acting on the pendulum are equal.
“I attached a 3-foot string to a child's toy top and secured it to the top of the blackboard with a thumbtack. I pulled the top to one side and made a mark on the blackboard where I let it go. Each time it swung back I made a new mark. It took less than a minute for the top to complete its swinging and come to rest. When I finished the demonstration, the markings on the blackboard proved my thesis. I then asked how many people in the room believed the law of the pendulum was true. All of my classmates raised their hands, as did the teacher. He started to walk to the front of the room thinking the class was over. In reality it had just begun. Hanging from the steel ceiling beams in the middle of the room was a large, crude but functional pendulum (250 pounds of metal weights tied to four strands of 500-pound test parachute cord.).
I invited the instructor to climb up on a table and sit in a chair with the back of his head against a concrete wall. Then I brought the 250 pounds of metal up to his nose. Holding the huge pendulum just a fraction of an inch from his face, I once again explained the law of the pendulum he had applauded only moments before, "If the law of the pendulum is true, then when I release this mass of metal, it will swing across the room and return short of the release point. Your nose will be in no danger." After that final restatement of this law, I looked him in the eye and asked, "Sir, do you believe this law is true?" There was a long pause. Huge beads of sweat formed on his upper lip and then weakly he nodded and whispered, "Yes." I released the pendulum. It made a swishing sound as it arced across the room. At the far end of its swing, it paused momentarily and started back. I never saw a man move so fast in my life. He literally dived from the table. Deftly stepping around the still-swinging pendulum, I asked the class, ‘Does he believe in the law of the pendulum?’"
On the other hand, there is the story of the young boy caught on the roof of his house as the building burned to the ground beneath him. His father stood outside the structure, looking up through the smoke and flames at the terrified face of his son. He knew the only way his son would be saved from death was if he jumped. The father shouted to his son, “Jump! I’ll catch you.”
The boy could only see smoke and flame and so replied, “But dad, I can’t see you!”
“No, son, but I can see you and that’s all that matters.”
Now go take on your world. - Bill