Its Simple. The Future is Past

(originally posted on 12/10/2011)
In Mark 10 when Jesus heals a blind man, he asks him what he wants. The man says "I want to see." Then Jesus says, "Go your way. Your faith has healed you." Immediately the man could see. After he curses the fig tree between Bethany and Jerusalem, he passes by it again with his disciples. Peter remembered Jesus cursing the tree, and seeing it withered he is pretty astounded. Jesus then says "Have faith in God. ²³ I assure you: If anyone says to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. ²⁴ Therefore, I tell you, all the things you pray and ask for —believe that you have received ^[b] them, and you will have them." (Mark 11:22-24). I have noted two things about these instances.

Jesus is simple in his approach to healing and miracles. Too many times I have seen and heard of people who think that their prayers or words must be as equally epic as the miracle that they are trying to bring about. They bring about elaborate prayers with clever, pre-stamped phrases and words that they once heard someone use over a microphone when they saw some miracle happen. Though I do not doubt that God honored that, I think he is calling us to come in to a better way. A way where we are not heard for our many words, but just for the cry of our hearts and the authority we have as heirs to the Kingdom of God. This is the way that Jesus puts out. He gives the example by healing the blind man with "Go your way, your faith has healed you." In most (if not all) of Jesus' other miracles the approach is just that simple: "Pick up your mat and walk"; "Come out of the man, you unclean Spirit"(Mark 5:8); "Stretch out your hand." (Mark 3:5), and there are more.

After his many examples, Jesus tells his disciples plainly all you have to do is believe what you say has happened and not doubt, and you will see it happen. This is also echoed in the first chapter of James and elsewhere throughout the Bible. When we approach a situation Jesus does not say, "first appeal to God" or "Pray my blood first" or "Recite my promises to you" (as if he did not already know these things or the power that he has given us). He only says to say what you want to happen and really believe it. Miracles are that simple.

The second thing to note is the tense in which Jesus puts things. He says to the man "Your faith has healed you." Exaggerating to let you see what I see, Jesus is saying "Your faith has already healed you". It is then that the man begins to see. Speaking to his disciples Jesus says in Mark 11:24 "...all the things that you pray and ask for- believe that you have received them, and you will have them." Again he is speaking of situations from the past tense. Believe that it has already happened and you will see it happen. I will venture to explain shortly:

God is outside of time. The only reason time exists to us is because we needed a way to measure our lives and the order of events. If God is outside of the realm of time, that means that he can see all of time at once much like we look at a ruler on a table. He can see the beginning and the end simultaneously. If this is the case then what we ask for he already sees as happened. And what has happened he can see as happening presently and any other way you want to look at it. In Genesis we were created in the image of God. That means that we are like him. Jesus even quotes the Psalms saying "Isn't it written in your law, I said, you are gods ?" In John 10. If this is so, then we are to also be timeless like God is. How can we be timeless when we are looking at situations from the viewpoint of a timeline that we have created that is not part of God. Therefore if we approach a situation from God's perspective, then we can approach it with the confidence that God has given us the necessary means to deal with it.

We do not need many words or elaborate conjured concoctions to do what God has called us to do. According to him we have already done these things. We just need to walk them out in accordance to his Kingdom. This is why we are to seek first the Kingdom. When the Kingdom is working in our lives we are doing what God is doing. When we worry about what we are saying we are no longer focused on the solution but trying to rework a formula where we already have the answer. And since we already have the answer, we should just bring it in from the time it has already happened to now.