Back From the Dead
Mark 5:35
While He was still speaking, some came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?”
It was November 2nd, 1948, the presidential election was being decided and the editor of the Chicago Tribune jumped the deadline and printed an early edition declaring New York Governor Thomas Dewey the winner and new President of the United States. There in black and white the headline shouted, “Dewey Defeats Truman." It was a mistake, but it was an understandable mistake. Incumbent President Harry S Truman was behind in all the polls and early returns had him trailing significantly.
The problem was that the headline was based on appearance and not on a fact. It was based on what seemed like the inevitable death of the current presidency, but it turned out that that presidency wasn’t dead. And to rub the point in, President Truman took great delight in posing with a copy of that paper with a huge grin. That headline teaches that you should never count any hope dead until it’s actually dead.
This is just an opening way for me to ask you what’s that prayer you’ve prayed and prayed about but now you feel it’s never going to be answered? Since God has not answered that prayer, do you think hope is dead? And if hope is dead, why bother Him anymore about it? Is it time to bury that prayer and live with the fact God didn’t answer you?
You've prayed and believed, but nothing happened! That loved one is still unsaved; or still sick; or still broke; or still getting a divorce. Or is it more personal? You’re still sick or still going through a trial and all hope seems lost. It must be that it just was not meant to be.
Is this your mindset? Are you ready to bury that prayer, or have already buried that prayer? Then please hold that shovelful of dirt for just a minute longer. I urge you to examine that prayer one last time, and unless you can say for certain that God Himself has slammed the door on your prayer, than you need to keep on bothering Him about it. This is where we are tested and our faith is tried. If that answer you’ve needed requires a miracle, does your faith allow for that miracle to happen? If that need is not something you can do on our own, can you believe God for the answer?
If Mark 5 teaches us anything, it’s that we should not give up on God. A demon-possessed man who had long terrorized a town delivered and restored to mental health. A woman bleeding for twelve years healed. And a synagogue ruler with a sick daughter who dies sees her restored alive and in good health. Which of these three had any hope? The demon-possessed man? Hardly, he wasn’t in his right mind. The woman? Hardly, she was so desperate she violated the law to try to touch Jesus. Jairus? Hardly, his daughter was dead, as in “kicked the bucket.” The conventional wisdom to all three was, “Why bother the Teacher any further?” Hope was dead.
Our faith must be tested, or it's not faith. We must be determined to be confident in Him without seeing, without any physical proof at all. Sometimes, there are going to be trials that will press us until we feel we’ll break under the strain. And maybe God will allow that thing to die in your life but even then He will be there to hold us up so we won’t fall. But if we lose faith in Him, then we will never see His power at work in our lives. Faith is believing even when we don’t see proof. Faith is believing when hope has waned to a feeble ember. Faith is that knot at the end of our rope when we’re barely hanging on. Faith is what’s left when hope dies.
Trust Him and be confident and pray that prayer again. Keep bothering the Teacher and pray that prayer again. You may be closer to a miracle than you realize. In Him is life, and through Him you will live life more abundantly.
Stephen Cram July 2, 2011 Colossians 2:8
Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. Colossians 2:8
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