I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.  Matthew 17:20

“Seeing is believing,” so goes the old saying, yet from God’s point of view, the very opposite is true.  Believing brings spiritual vision, which clears the brain of fuzzy negative thinking.  I’ve been thinking of the incident which took place as Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem, where He was to die.  He knew this.  A sense of urgency drove Him towards the Holy City.  Jesus sensed that what would take place in Jerusalem was the very purpose for which He had come.   What would happen was the main event of the ages.  But as Jesus was leaving Jericho to take the road up to Jerusalem, He encountered a blind man—actually two of them—who cried out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”  When Jesus heard this, He stopped.  From a social standpoint, they weren’t important.  They really didn’t count, but they counted with Jesus.

He knew what they wanted, and He was prepared to give it to them.  They had heard that He could heal the sick and deformed.  “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” Jesus asked them, and they replied, “Yes, Lord.”  According to Matthew, who was an eyewitness, Jesus touched them and said, “According to your faith will it be done to you!”

I’ve been thinking how often Jesus did things which were the opposite of human logic.  The Jews placed a premium on action, but Jesus placed it on belief.  Furthermore, He tells someone who is blind to believe in something they have heard about but never seen.  Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people had seen Christ perform one or more of the 34 miracles which the New Testament writers tell us about, but they still had trouble believing.  And Jesus tells blind men to believe!

Question:  Why was it that two blind men, pretty much social outcasts, probably with some street-smart but no real education, were able to believe, when some of the real intellectuals of Jesus’ day stumbled over unbelief and came up empty-handed?  But have I not answered my own question?

Faith in God does not negate using your brain, thinking for yourself, but it does operate in another plane or mode.  It means switching languages, much like a computer operator who uses a program which operates on a different system.   The system programs our brains to think, “God can’t do that!  If He exists, He’s out there some where in space, and He doesn’t care what happens to me!”

The question that Jesus asked is one you must answer when you pray: “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”  Well, what’s your answer?

Faith is simply believing what the Word tells you.  It doesn’t attempt to understand how God does it.  It just believes that He will.   For the intellectuals of Jesus’ day, that God would honor simple faith over action didn’t make sense.  From their point of view, God rewarded right living—deeds of mercy and justice.  What’s wrong with that?  Nothing in itself, but Jesus taught that what God does is not a reward which He gives in recognition of the good we do.

Paul makes it very clear as He wrote, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5, KJV).

Believing God may be counter to human logic.  Faith steps into a new plane of living, one which God still honors.  It doesn’t deny the problem.  It just believes that God is more powerful and that He will honor the simple promises He has made.  How do you answer that question, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”  And God responds, “According to your faith will it be done to you!”  Yes, friend. It’s still true today.

Resource reading: Matthew 9:27-38.