Day 2: All Things Are Possible

A friend once came to me and confessed to his life-long struggles with sexual sin. His story wasn’t unlike my own, and it wasn’t uncommon. What struck me was his parting statement to me: “Don’t pray for me. I’m tired of having people pray for me, lay hands on me, kneel in prayer with me, and then having to confess to them later that nothing has changed. I feel like I’m letting everyone down. I’ve had to realize I might never be rid of this.” His addiction wasn’t what stuck out, it was his total resignation to it that hit me. He didn’t want prayer because he had ceased believing that healing in this area was possible. In his opinion, God hadn’t done a work in his life and clearly wasn’t going to. It was impossible.

If we are to gain freedom, the first building block has to be granting God the ability, the permission to set us miraculously free. Simply put, we have to believe that it’s possible even if that has not been our experience. If in our minds freedom is impossible, our lack of faith has immediately limited what God will do. Faith is always the foundation! Has healing not yet come? Believe anyway. Has it been many years? Be patient, press on, and above all else, believe. God can do it; your faith is the requirement.

One of the most common themes of this study could easily be labeled as, “God doing the impossible.” It’s His right as the Creator and Sustainer of all things to operate outside our realm of understanding, to do what He will and do it His way. He operates outside our earthly concept of “possible”, and like Peter walking on the water, our success will be dependent on our belief. Rules of logic and possibility, like that of gravity and the surface tension of the water that Peter briefly walked on, are entirely in the hand of God and may be broken (by Him) at His will. The first item on our checklist, so to speak, must be to rule out the impossibility of total freedom. To believe, to know deeply that He can do it.

Read the entire passage in Matthew 19 to get the full context of His conversation with the rich young ruler. When Jesus finished speaking, he gave his disciples what could have been a very discouraging view of a rich man's chances of finding salvation. When his disciples reacted in amazement to his statement with the exclamation of, “Who then can be saved?” (Matt. 19:25) Jesus looked at them and delivered to us all one of the most important statements we would ever receive about God, “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.” The tendency of the self-reliant man is to struggle on his own power, to try to overcome. He will feel as if he must contribute something, that surely God rewards those that work hard for their own freedom. Sadly, the self-reliant man misses the truth of Jesus' statement, and in so doing, also misses the intended blessing.

All through the Bible are recorded the testimonies of Godly men who, having received a promise many years before seeing its fruit, believed God anyway. Adam. Noah. Abraham. Jacob. The list goes on. Three times the Bible tells us that “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness” (Ro. 4:3, Gal. 3:6, Ja. 2:23). Our belief is what God requires, even—or perhaps especially—when we do not yet see the fruit.

His death on the cross was enough. When Jesus spoke the words, “It is finished”, we were already free.  All we must now do is to realize and accept this gift. You can indeed do all things—endure, overcome, walk victoriously—but it will be on His strength, not your own.

If you trust Jesus for your eternal salvation, can He not also empower you to live in victory? Is that not the smaller of the two tasks? He has already secured your pardon. Will He not then be faithful to ensure your sanctification? Step one is to trust Him. 

Today, dwell on the promise that nothing is impossible for God; ask Him to help you fully embrace that truth. Praise God for his power to do what cannot be done and trust Him to do it for you.