Exhortation

Our sermon text this morning begins a section of Matthew in which Jesus performs a series of miracles. He cleanses a leper, makes paralytics mobile, calms storms, gives sight to the blind and speech to the dumb. He casts out demons and raises the dead.

Everywhere Jesus goes, life comes to the dead, acceptance to outcasts, health to the sick. Jesus can do anything. He is willing to heal and cleanse, as He tells the leper, and He is able.

Do you believe that? Do you really believe that Jesus can help and heal in every trial, with every illness, with every disease, in every crisis? And if you believe it, do you act on that belief? What’s your first instinct in a crisis? To shake your fist at heaven? To feel sorry for yourself? To bemoan the injustice of fate? Or is your first instinct the instinct to pray?

But I’ve tried that, you might say. I’ve got this nagging illness, and Jesus hasn’t helped me. My family is being tossed about like a boat in a storm, and Jesus won’t calm the waves. I’ve prayed for a new job, but nothing comes through.

If that’s true, if you have asked Jesus in faith for these things, and He hasn’t answered your prayers, He’s up to something else with your life. You can still trust Him. But James says we have not because we ask not; and Jesus implies that we don’t get what we ask because we are full of doubt. More often than not, we don’t get help because we don’t go to Jesus, the only place where we can find help.

Before you pray for your chronic illness, or your family crisis, or your job, pray another prayer: Pray for faith. Pray, Lord I believe, help my unbelief.