◄ The Faith Of The Lord Jesus ►

With God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment. (Luke 1:37 AMP)

It seems that when the Lord Jesus chose His twelve disciples there was, at the back of the choice and back of the purpose of having a company of men always with Him the intention of showing and expressing what the character of the Firstborn is so far as relationship to other members of the Family is concerned. To put that in another way: if we study the characteristics of the Lord Jesus in relation to His own when He was here on the earth, we have a good example of what family characteristics are in the thought of the Father. For instance, take the imperfections, the shortcomings, the weaknesses of the twelve and see what the attitude of the Lord Jesus was toward them. The Holy Spirit takes no pains to cover up those faults and those flaws. There is no attempt made whatever to present those men as an ideal group. Their picture is painted true to life and all the difficult lines are there the bad and the good and nothing unpleasant is hidden from view. None of the lines are taken out of their faces. They are all clearly seen. The Lord Jesus was not dealing with an easy company, but a company which might often have provoked despair. But one thing was characteristic of Him in relation to a difficult handful, and that was His faith for them.

What faith the Lord Jesus had for those men! It was not that He had faith in them, neither was it that He had faith for them because of what He saw in them; but He had infinite faith in the Father for them. His attitude was: "Well, nothing is impossible with God. Here are these men; they are difficult and they could easily be My despair; they never seem to understand what I say! They always seem to get the wrong interpretation; they always seem to miss the point. When I say a thing they get it from an altogether wrong angle; they are utterly materialistic in their outlook, in their expectation and in their desires. They never see far beyond this world and their own personal interests. They seem totally incapable of getting a spiritual conception. And yet the Father can do wonders with a handful of men like that; nothing is impossible."