Mark 6:5-6 says, “And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. 6 And he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.”
The 5 major distractions and traps that satan uses to keep Christian believers from staying focus in their walk with God and calling includes:
- Fear
- Unbelief
- Anxiety
- Satanic Lies
- Despair
2) Unbelief
One of the greatest hindrances to the manifestation of the power of God is unbelief. When Jesus could not do many mighty works in his hometown of Nazareth, the Bible says that He marveled at their unbelief. He strongly implied that their unbelief itself was the hindrance to the manifestation of the healing and delivering power of God. There were two spirits that marveled Jesus. One was the spirit of unbelief, and the other was the spirit of faith. Those are the two spirits that operate in the lives of human beings even today. Until you decide and make up in your mind that you are going to believe the Word of God, regardless of circumstances or situations or whatever is surrounding you, then you will always be wavering between two opinions. As a matter of fact, one prophet in the Bible said, “How long will you be halt between two opinions?” Either you are going to believe God, or you are going to believe the devil. (1 Kings 18:21)
Have you ever seen someone with one foot on the edge of a boat and the other on the dock? As the boat begins to drift away from the dock, the person can’t decide whether to get onto the boat or remain on the dock. In the moment of indecision, they end up in the lake.
Wavering between two decisions usually results in disaster. In I Kings 18:21, Elijah asked the people of Israel a very serious question. “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”
There comes a place in the believer’s life where they have to resolve, “I am going to believe the Word of God.” Everybody else can trend or evolve or go wherever they want to go, but I am going to stick with God. Amen.
There two main causes of unbelief
a) Not knowing the truth: Hosea 4:6 says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.”
Some people don’t study the Bible themselves to know the truth. They have never been exposed to the truth of God’s Word and simply do not believe because they’ve never heard the truth.
b) Incorrect teaching: There are those who believe in God, and they believe in His power for deliverance, but because of incorrect teaching, they believe that sometimes God allows people to be sick, diseased, and in poverty for a purpose. The result of this incorrect teaching is that many times those who need to be healed and delivered will not experience deliverance because of the uncertainty in their mind. The enemy puts this continual thought in their mind: “Maybe I’m the one who is called to bear this burden. Maybe I’m the one that God has chosen to not receive His power so that somehow someone else can be delivered. Or possibly God is trying to teach me something. After all, Jesus did say we have to bear our cross!”
Warning against False Teaching – 1 Timothy 1:3-5 (CEV)
“When I was leaving for Macedonia, I asked you to stay on in Ephesus and warn certain people there to stop spreading their false
teachings. 4 You needed to warn them to stop wasting their time on senseless stories and endless lists of ancestors. Such things only cause arguments. They don’t help anyone to do God’s work that can only be done by faith. 5 You must teach people to have genuine love, as well as a good conscience and true faith. 6 There are some who have given up these for nothing but empty talk. 7 They want to be teachers of the Law of Moses. But they don’t know what they are talking about, even though they think they do.”
Some people even teach and belief that God put sick people in the hospital to go through pain and suffering so that they could witness to those who works there. That is ridiculous! Certainly, the God of the universe who spoke creation out of nothing could create a circumstance by which the only way to witness the Gospel to the hospital worker is through other people infected with diseases and pain? Unfortunately, many people are taught this by well-meaning teachers who are trying to give God an excuse and to explain away why some Christians are sick. Spiritual laziness is the result.
Although the price has been paid for our deliverance, the action of faith requires confession and receiving of the gift. There are those who simply don’t want the hassle that comes with receiving because we have the responsibility as Christians to act on our belief. Sometimes Christians entertain doubt is a result of intellectual thinking and being led by logic instead of being led by the spirit. Belief requires humility and submission to God, realizing that the price has been paid, the work has been done, and that the gift of deliverance is ours and all we must do is receive it by faith.
SPECIAL NOTE: Many times, unbelief comes from what we perceive through our physical senses. For example, when the prayer of faith has been prayed and it is not physically obvious that things have changed in the natural reams, we lose hope and fall into unbelief. We must consciously choose to override the unbelief that naturally comes from what we can physically see, smell, feel or hear and embrace the faith we have in God and what He has said in His Word. As Christians, once we’ve made the decision to believe, we should just relax, let go, and trust God and allow the natural flow of the spirit to work through us and the supernatural will come to pass. Remember, believing is a choice. Choose to believe and receive.
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