My Online Faith Journal

I’ve been noticing the place that faith has in the miracles and healings of Jesus. Faith played a big part in whether or not people were healed or experienced miracles in their lives. One example of a lack of faith was when Jesus returned to his hometown in Mark 6:1-6, it says, “And He could do no miracle there except that He laid His hands upon a few sick people and healed them. And He wondered at their unbelief.” Mark 6:5 Then also there is the lack of faith of the disciples themselves. When Jesus and Peter, John and James were on the mount of transfiguration, the disciples had a man bring his son to them. The disciples attempted to cast out the demon, but were unable to. It says in Mark 9:17-18 “And one of the crowd answered Him, “Teacher, I brought You my son, possessed with a spirit which makes him mute; and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him to the ground and he foams at the mount and grinds his teeth, and stiffens out, And I told your disciples to cast it out, and the

      We have all had times when it seems that heaven is closed and God is not listening to us. Many of the great saints of the past have testified to going through times like that. So, how do you know that your prayers are heard? How to know that your prayers are pleasing in God’s sight? A friend told me a long time ago that even when God is silent that doesn’t mean he isn’t working and that is true. There are a couple of qualities of prayers that touch the heart of God and move mountains.       James 1:5-8 tells us that if a person wants wisdom to ask of God, but to ask in a manner that is without doubting. James says the one who doubts is like the one who is double-minded and unstable. That person should expect nothing from God because this is the opposite of faith. You and I are to prayer with the expectation that God will answer. He may not answer the way you want, but you pray by faith trusting God that he knows best how to answer you. See Mark 11:24-26      Sometimes I hav

     I can remember a pastor who preached on this text years ago when I was a college student at a Campus Crusade for Christ conference.  I believe that was the same conference where I decided to sign up for summer missions, which eventually led me to go to the state of Nevada for a summer on mission trip.       John identifies John 2:13 as happening around Passover.  John is the only disciple who puts this story at the beginning of Jesus' ministry.  It is possible that this happened twice.  The Passover would have occurred around March-April around the full moon.  The temple and Jerusalem would have been extremely crowded with people.  It is possible that the moneychangers and animal pens were temporary for this ceremony.  The problem with it was that the outer court was the only place for non-Jews to pray and worship.  Mark's version of this story says that Jesus called the money changers a robbers den, which may refer to the rates of exchange that the merchants were charg