Matthew 21:18-22

Think about all of Jesus' miracles. All of the stuff that the disciples have seen. Mind-blowing stuff. Then 4 days before he is cruficied, they see Jesus curse a fig tree and it dries up immediately, and they can't figure out how he did it.
It's like they constantly forget that Jesus is God and can do anything that he wants. They've seen it constantly, so why would they be so amazed by this.
This is so similar to my faith, though. I mean, I constantly am amazed by what God has done for, through, and with me, and yet I never think he can do it again. I always feel like I'm struggling to stay afloat and yet God is constantly showing me that he is perfectly capable of teaching me to swim.
One of my favorite characteristics of the disciples is that they were so dumb. They never understood what Jesus was saying or at least the true implications of it.
JM

Matthew 17:14-20

I love seeing the power of faith demonstrated. It's incredible to me the things that Jesus says that we can accomplish through faith. Moving mountains. I wonder how different my life would be if I really prayed desperately for things and had faith that God would provide? Perhaps that would be a great experiment. JM

Matthew 13:44-46

Would you give up everything you had to get Jesus? I mean everything? That's a really tough thought. I mean, I can imagine suffering a little. I can imagine being poor (I kind of am), I can imagine having people reject you because of your faith (some of my neighbors are uncomfortable around me because of my faith), I can even imagine having friends reject you (I've had several friends say they just didn't "get" my faith). But can you imagine not having anything. Can you imagine your family rejecting you. Your wife. Your kids. Your parents. Can you imagine not having anyone but God.
I hope and pray that my life never comes to that. I hope that I'm never tested in that. I think I could do it, but I would be so sad. JM

Matthew 9:27-31

"Because you believe I can make you see again, it will happen."
Jesus has a pattern of blessing people who have faith. I've seen that over and over again just in the past few chapters. Jesus gives people what they want. But the stories all have several things in common.
1. They ask Jesus for it. They don't just wish that they had something, but they take the time to approach Jesus about it. Some are even carried to him, just so they can ask him.
2. They make their request specific. The blind didn't ask to be better, they wanted sight. The guy who couldn't walk asked to walk.
3. They believe that Jesus can do it. One guy believed that Jesus could heal his servant, even if Jesus wasn't present. One guy believed that Jesus could raise his daughter from the dead. Two guys believed that Jesus could give them sight.
God is not done granting requests. While I certainly don't believe in the "health and wealth" gospel, I do believe that God eagerly desires to give us things when they are in line with his will. So why not pray for 100 middle school students at my super bowl party? Why not pray for 200? Why not pray for as many as we can physically handle?
Why not pray that God can get hold of the hearts of people in my church and make them passionate disciples of Jesus? If I ask Jesus for it specifically, and believe that Jesus can do it, then why would he not desire to grant it if my motives are pure?
Now of course there are other reasons why God may choose to not say yes. But that's not what I'm getting at. God wants to bless us. We desire to be blessed. It's not God's fault when we are not blessed. JM

The Amazing Power Of Faith

Today's message at my church was awesome. We're going through a series called "The Amazing Race: The Four Clues to have a Great 2007". God really used it to speak to me on a very personal level.
Some of the highlights for me "What would I attempt if I knew I could not fail?" Man, that really hits at my fear of leading a church. I feel like God is really leading me in that direction, but I'm so scared of failing.
He also talked about how God will give us the What, How, and When. I know I have the what, but now I need to pursue the how and when. So I'm going to keep researching and praying so that I can discover those last two.
The last thing that really hit me was that "Faith is being willing to risk failure." This kind of goes along with what I read in Prayer of Jabez today as far as living with a dependence on God. It's easy for me to stay in my comfort zone. But stepping out of that to where I have to look beyond myself is difficult because I have to rely on God. It's sad that I so often fail to rely on him when I should look to him first.
Everything I've been doing lately is really pointing me in the lead pastor direction. It's really exciting for me. JM