Lesson 3… The 5 biggest failures of Jesus, and how He turned them around.

Lesson 3

The partial healing of the blind man

Problem:

Jesus prayed for this man and His prayer was only partially successful. He was not accustomed to His prayers not working. Usually people were healed right away, and yet, this man was not completely healed by the first prayer.

Jesus’ response:

From the beginning it seems like Jesus knew that this man would be a hard case because he did things He normally never did.

a) He took the man by the hand and led him outside the village;

b) He spat on the man’s eyes;

c) He laid His hands on him:

d) He asked him, “Do you see anything?”; and

e) After the man’s healing He told him to go straight home and not to go back into the village. After doing all of this the man was still not healed.

Jesus did not back away from this hard case but rather invested more in it.

What did Jesus do wrong the first time? The answer, of course, is nothing. Then why did it not work? We may never know, but Jesus tried again and succeeded that time.

For Jesus there were no half-measures, no partial healing. Either the man was healed or he was not.

General application:

When something works only partially we have three choices:

a) Be satisfied with the partial blessing, figuring that it’s better than nothing;

b) Reason that that’s as far as anyone can get and give up believing in more; and

c) Try again in the determination that you will not accept half-measures. Half measures and partial miracles are from the devil, not God. The devil loves for you to stop short of the miracle you want, and downsize.

Many times we get discouraged when we do our very best, go the extra mile, take special care to do things right, and things don’t work out. The thought comes, “Well… if you did all that and it didn’t work, it will probably never work.” The temptation is to give up – to label it as impossible.

In many instances the difference between the man who succeeds and the man who fails is that the successful man tries one more time. There are times in life that we do everything right and what we are expecting doesn’t happen. Our response should be to try again until it does work.

When people lack a persistent spirit, many times it’s because they doubt themselves, or their abilities and talents.