Presbyterian Devotions: Lacking Faith - Mark 6 v 6

Mark 6:6 And he was amazed at their lack of faith.

It is said that ‘familiarity breeds contempt,’ so Jesus must have experienced some of that in His hometown. His own community, made up of people He knew as neighbors and colleagues, just couldn’t accept Christ for what He had become. They knew enough about His family and His local history to let that information become a barrier. He had become more than they could accept. He was beyond their knowledge and control.

I think that the present generation of Christians is suffering from the same parochial mentality. We have grown up knowing about Christ since our days of Sunday School kindergarten. Jesus has been a part of our stories for as far as back as we can remember, so we think that we know who He really is.

But when we go out into the world, we meet up with other faiths, other religions, and other historical leaders. We begin to mesh our ideas about Jesus with other religious ways. Instead of uniquely calling Him Savior and Lord, we keep Him on an equal basis with the likes of Moses, Muhammad, Buddha, Krishna, and Gandhi. The Jesus that we know is kept under control and shaped into what we want Him to be. Rather than declare Him as Lord of the Universe and Savior of the World, we seek to be non-offensive to other religions by declaring that we all worship the same God. In other words, just like the people of Capernaum, we take offense at Christ’s uniqueness and dilute our beliefs so that we can be accepted by the religious world.

I firmly believe that if Christ were to walk into most mainline denominational churches, He would be amazed at our lack of real, sincere, and true faith in Him. We have become slaves to the culture instead of disciples of Christ’s Church.

That’s why I preach, teach, and write the way that I do – for me, there is no compromising Christ’s divinity; there is no diluting of His Lordship, and there is no belittling of His unique and holy status of being the Only Savior of the world. It’s all or nothing for me, and if people really read the Gospels, they would know that it’s all or nothing with Christ too.

Prayer:                        Lord Jesus, You are not a Westernized Gandhi or Buddha. You are not equivalent to Moses or Muhammad. You are not the Krishna who appears at a time of crisis or the avatar who enters into the world to avert disaster. You are infinitely above and beyond all of them. You are Jesus Christ, the Living Son of God, the Only Savior of the World, and the Holy One who has the words, works, and way to everlasting life. In Your Holy Name, we uniquely pray. Amen.

John Stuart is the pastor of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you would like to comment on today’s message, please send him an email to pastor@erinpresbyterian.org.