unbelief = faith killer

My husband and I were talking about Zachariah this morning, and how he was struck dumb because he did not believe God. "And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time." Do you realize...here in the USA...if this happened in our day...when he came out dumb..our first reaction would not be a spiritual one. It would be..."he must have had a stroke or something...send him to the ER!". The whole story of Zachariah is amazing to me. It amazes me the power of believing and not believing something. There is even an instance with Jesus Himself where He could do hardly anything in a city because they did not believe. (Matthew 13:58 (amplified)And He did not do many works of power there, because of their unbelief (their lack of faith in the divine mission of Jesus).) I am also reminded of the story of the time the disciples could not deliver a demon possessed boy and Jesus had to do it and later told His disciples that this kind does not come out but by praying and fasting. I believe he is not talking about the demon...but their unbelief!

I do wonder how often God wants so desperately to work in our lives but we are not cooperating with or believing what He is trying to do. We don't "see' it, so we don't "believe". Rather silly...our whole salvation is based on something we cannot see or really prove. I know there is fear. Fear of deception...but that is unacceptable. God is spirit and the things He does will be spiritual. We are spirits. We should not be trying to reason all the time if we see a person healed or a person delivered from demons. It is a sad state...if you are one to automatically dismiss anything of the miraculous. Without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God..and faith means that you believe without seeing it all the time. Sadly...in most of our churches none of this is happening because we are so cynical of it all. God is unable to deliver people..because we don't believe it is real.......

melanie