“If you really believe in yourself, you can do anything. You can be anything you want to be!” Oh? Really? That sentiment has been used many times to motivate people, and in a certain context it might help. Out of context, however, it is clearly ridiculous.
You can do anything? Fly? Invent time travel? Nope.
As we see in our text today there are some things that are clearly beyond our power. Even though we have made great advances in medicine, our ability to make the deaf hear is very limited. There are times when we simply don’t have the ability to heal.
This is true especially in the spiritual realm. While people tend to think that faith and a life of gratitude and service to God should be within our abilities, the Bible says otherwise. The Bible says we are just as able to bring ourselves to faith as we are to choose our parents. Jesus says in John 3:6, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” Paul says the same thing in different words, in 1 Corinthians 12:3, “… no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.”
It is only by the Holy Spirit that we come to faith and spiritual life, and without faith we are just plain blind and deaf where spiritual truth is concerned. “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14)
This is one more reason to always be taught and led by the Spirit of God, but making His word part of our lives.