Aperture - Not Amperage

"Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” — Mark 9:23 (KJV)

There was a father in Mark 9 who came to Jesus worn all the way down. He had already tried the disciples. They could not help him. So he brought his need to the one he wasn’t even sure could do anything, and he said exactly what exhausted people say: If thou canst do anything, have compassion on us.

He aimed that if at Jesus.

Jesus caught it right out of the air — and handed it back. If thou canst believe. Beloved, the question was never whether Christ is able. It has never been that. The question is whether we will trust.

Now hear this carefully, because somebody has been beating themselves to death over this very thing. There is a notion floating around that says the more faith you can squeeze out, the more you receive. Believe harder, get more. And if the results look thin, well — your faith must have been thin too. No. Dear saints of God, no. That turns the gospel into amperage. More voltage, more outcome. And it always lands hardest on the very people who can least afford it: the grieving, the waiting, the ones whose faith is real but worn thin by the long road.

Watch this father. The next thing out of his mouth is not a boast. It is a confession. Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. Faith and the shortage of faith, in the same breath. Uneven. Honest. Enough. And the boy gets delivered anyway. Not because the man believed hard enough to earn it. Because the mercy of God was made available through the faithfulness of Christ to a man willing to be honest about where he stood.

What you are able to do and see and experience is not measured by how hard you believe. It is measured by the sufficiency of the One you believe.

Faith is not a power source. Faith is an aperture. It does not manufacture the light. It opens the shutter and lets an already blazing light come through. The sun does not shine harder because you open the curtains wider. The sun is already at full strength. All the open window does is stop standing in the way. That, dear saints, is the whole work of faith. Not to make God stronger. To quit blocking the light that is already there.

So I am not asking you to believe harder this morning. I am asking you to believe honestly. Take whatever faith you carried into this day — however frayed, however worn — and stop using your strength to hold the curtain shut. And if all you can pray is what that father prayed, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief — that prayer was enough to get a boy delivered. It is enough for you.

Richard Smallwood said it in song: Jesus, you’re the center of my joy. All that’s good and perfect comes from you. That is the confession. The joy is not something we generate. It is centered in Christ. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights. We are not the source, dear saints. We are the open window. Our part is simply to let what is already true of Him become what is experienced in us.

My God is already enough. I will get out of the way and let His light through.

All-In.— Bishop Lambert W. Gates Sr.