We Must Believe for God's Power to Be Manifested
Abram believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him for righteousness. — Genesis 15:6
Jesus didn't do many mighty works there (in Nazareth) because of their unbelief. — Matthew 13:58
Author
Dr. Roberto Miranda
Summary: For God's power to be manifested among us, we need a receptive attitude and must believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are still active today. As we seek his intervention, we must trust that God is who the Scriptures reveal him to be and that he rewards those who seek him. Unbelief can keep his power from flowing freely: Jesus did not perform many miracles in Nazareth because its inhabitants failed to recognize who he was. In our communities, too, denying that God speaks in supernatural and personal ways can stall the work of the Spirit. Where people and their leaders believe in God and believe what he says, there is an opportunity for the Spirit to speak and act.
A receptive attitude, an openness to the Spirit’s interventions, is required for God to fulfill his purposes in us. As we have emphasized before, there must be a people who believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are for all times, for the here and now.
We must believe beforehand that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, so that his Spirit can work freely in us. A supernatural mindset must be established as a foundation on which God can carry out his supernatural works.
In the famous chapter on faith in Hebrews 11, the Bible says that “whoever comes to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Heb 11:6). In other words, if we are going to seek a miracle from God, we had better be sure that he is who the Bible says he is. We must believe that he rewards those who actively seek his miracles and interventions with success and victory.
If a church or community does not believe that God still speaks in a supernatural and personal way, as the Scriptures show, God very probably will not speak. In Matthew 13:58 we are taught that Jesus did not perform many miracles among the people of Nazareth because of their unbelief. Perhaps he had to limit himself to just a few minor interventions! The people from Jesus’ hometown could not believe that the little boy they had seen running barefoot through the streets of Nazareth a few years earlier was, in fact, the Son of God. Their inability to adjust their mental picture of Jesus—their flawed patterns of thought—kept the power within him from flowing freely.
That unbelief among so many evangelicals, which sometimes passes itself off as theological complexity and subtlety, will sooner or later grieve the Spirit and bring the free flow of divine energy to a standstill.
But where there is a people of faith like those men and women recorded in the famous eleventh chapter of Hebrews who believed God, where there is a leader or leaders who believe in God and believe what God says, there is an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to speak and act.