This article is archived. Some links and details throughout the article may no longer be active or accurate.

By Mark 6, Jesus had been teaching, healing, delivering and raising people from the dead. His hometown, only 20 miles away from His base of ministry, had heard about it, but they hadn’t yet seen Jesus manifest the miraculous.

Finally, Jesus came home. Nazareth was a town with no more than 300 people, so literally everyone would have seen Him growing up; they knew His family and His history well—now they hoped to see for themselves these supernatural works Jesus had been doing all over the country. But when He visited His “home church” (the town synagogue) He could do only a few miracles (see Mark 6:5) because the people had developed hard hearts due to three attitudes that often show up in our lives, too.

Cynicism

Jesus began to teach with authority, but the response of those who’d seen Him grow up was full of cynicism: “You might be able to fool everyone else in Galilee, but we know your family and where you live!” (vv. 2-3, paraphrased).

Cynicism, and its close relative, skepticism, makes our hearts hard and unavailable for the miraculous. God wants to do amazing things among us, but we “keep our distance” because of something we’ve seen or experienced—for instance, maybe we have a hard time trusting for healing because we’ve seen someone with bad motives or bad theology minister healing. Instead of correcting the error, however, we close off our hearts to the miraculous things God may want to do for or through us.

Offense

After they expressed their cynicism, the Bible says, “they took offense at Him” (v. 3, NIV). Instead of habitually extending grace and forgiveness as we’re called to do, many believers are addicted to offense. We’re easily offended at all kinds of people: politicians, celebrities, those who don’t vote like us, leaders who make different decisions than we would make, and most of our Facebook friends.

But living with offense is a major key to missing what God has for us—one of the reasons Jesus couldn’t minister the miraculous in Nazareth was because of their hard hearts that manifested offense. I believe many miracles have been shut down among us, too, because we live with hard-hearted offense toward others, or even toward God.

The Jesus we know so well is moving in the miraculous all over the world, and we want to see that manifested where we are.


I’ve met dear people who continue to hold onto hurt and offense because they were seeking a certain miracle a certain way, but it didn’t happen how they’d hoped. Instead of offense, we’re called to live with childlike belief that continually trusts God’s heart, even when we can’t always see His hand.

Familiarity

You’d think this hometown homecoming would have been the best place for Jesus to do miracles, but we all know what they say about familiarity … it breeds contempt. Familiarity says, “Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.”

Familiarity is like the little boy who grew up in Sunday school, where he knew the sort of answers you’re supposed to give to questions at church. One day, the teacher asked, “What’s brown, furry, has a long tail and stores up nuts for winter?” The boy muttered, “I guess the answer is Jesus, but it sure sounds like a squirrel to me.”

Some of us are so familiar with Jesus: We grew up with Jesus in church, and when we start hearing about supernatural possibilities, we might get cynical or offended because of something that happened to us at a church, or at a camp—or we might just be so familiar with the whole thing that we respond, “Yeah, been there, done that, bought the T-shirt … and it didn’t work out so well.”

Are we going to be like the small-minded, hard-hearted townspeople who grew up with Jesus, or like the disciples who left everything to follow Him?


As a son, grandson, great-grandson and great-great-grandson of Pentecostal pastors and evangelists, I was quite familiar with the supernatural, but my heart had grown hard because, though I’d seen it all, I hadn’t often experienced supernatural life for myself. My own point of repentance didn’t have to do with cynicism or offense, but with a familiarity that allowed me to embrace a form of godliness while denying its power in and through my own life.

The Jesus we know so well is moving in the miraculous all over the world, and we want to see that manifested where we are, too, but here’s the question: Are we going to be like the small-minded, hard-hearted townspeople who grew up with Jesus, or like the disciples who left everything to follow Him? Are we willing to leave behind our cynicism, offense and familiarity to once again see Jesus’ message and ministry with faith-filled eyes?

I want Jesus to be able to do more than heal a few people among us—I want to see the mighty supernatural works that He intends to do right where we are!

is the senior pastor of The Church On The Way (Van Nuys Foursquare Church) in Van Nuys, Calif.
Advertisement

Leave a Reply