We’ve been challenged the past few weeks about faith.  There are a few different ways that we see faith manifest itself.  We learned last week about showing our faith by our works and asking God what our next step of faith is.  We were reminded that faith is what enabled Jesus to bring healing and deliverance throughout His earthly ministry and how it is still by faith that we receive everything from God.

Faith can be seen through the immediate and miraculous receipt of God’s promises.  Just as in this case:

Acts 14:8-10

8 In Lystra there sat a man who was lame. He had been that way from birth and had never walked. 9 He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed 10 and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.

We don’t have the details of how this man and Paul ended up together.  We don’t know what Paul was preaching about for sure.  Since God chose for them not to be recorded, they need not be our focus.  Whatever the circumstances, God made sure that we knew that God healed this man because he had the faith to accomplish it.  We know that Paul was speaking about the Kingdom of God and that God revealed to him what He wanted to accomplish.

God working through the faith of Paul and the faith of the lame man to do the impossible!  This man had never learned to walk; never walked a day in his lifetime from birth on.  However, at the simple command of Paul, by the leading of God, he JUMPED up onto his feet and began to walk!  This was a radical act of obedience and a literal huge step of faith!

For just a moment, imagine yourself in this man’s situation.  Commanding someone who never, ever walked in their life is just like commanding you or I to fly.  It was impossible.  It would seem outright rude or cruel to some.  Yet by faith, Paul commanded, the man obeyed, and the impossible became reality!

There are so many unanswered questions, but I doubt that any of them mattered to that man from that day on.

We find a similar account in the gospel of John.  Disputes are breaking out among the Pharisees about the testimony that Jesus is sharing, who He is, and what He is doing.  A common side-effect of faith is the critique, condemnation, and dividing of those around us.  Our own faith in the Lord often reveals where the faith of others is as well.

John 9

1 As Jesus went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

So much is revealed by these two simple sentences.  Clearly, this guy was well known and Jesus and the disciples knew him and that he had been born blind.  Why this was the case clearly revealed that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts.

The disciples assumed that the blindness was a result of God’s judgment for sin and they likely would have just kept on walking.  They didn’t display any compassion toward this man, showed no interest in helping him in any way, and probably felt a little better than him walking around with Jesus.

Jesus thought and responded much differently!  In fact, He shifted the responsibility for this man’s blind condition back onto themselves.  An act of empathy!

3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

Now not only were Jesus’ thoughts not the same as our thoughts, His ways were far, far from our ways.  I’ve never seen anyone act in this way toward a blind person…

6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

Although the method is highly cont