Breaking the Cycle of Generational Unbelief
Mark 6:5-6
And He could do no miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He wondered at their unbelief. And He was going around the villages teaching.”
The details about Jesus’ ministry in His hometown of Nazareth can be disheartening. A few healings occurred, however, apparently not many people believed. Vs. 6 says that Jesus “wondered” at their unbelief. He was “amazed” and “marveled” that no one believed Him. The area was plagued with unbelief.
The word “believe” is used over 400 times in the Bible. It is tied to the word “faith.” And faith, or belief, is at the core of receiving Jesus Christ. So if faith in Jesus is the core of receiving Jesus as Savior and Lord, then a lack of faith, unbelief, is at the core of rejecting Jesus. The sin that ultimately sentences a lost person to eternal separation from God is unbelief. And unbelief is all around us. It is in our homes, our schools, our governments, our cities, our nation and our world. John 3:18 says, “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe [unbelief] has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
For the next few weeks, I’d like to share with you the story of a true hero - my dad. . But more than being my hero, my dad is a testimony to every person that knew him because he broke the cycle of generational unbelief. This will take a few weeks to unpack, but I pray by reading and considering his story, you will be encouraged to break the cycle of unbelief in your life, or the life of your family.
Dad was born in 1935 in Memphis, Tennessee. He was not raised in a Christian home. In fact, he was raised in a godless home. His mother was an alcoholic and an adulteress. His father was a brawler and fighter. Neither of them knew Jesus, or helped dad to know Jesus. They later divorced, and the circumstances were full of infidelity, deception, hatred and strife.
Not long after dad was born, the family realized that something was wrong with him physically. I will share more about this in the weeks to come but for now, let me explain it this way. Can you imagine picking up your newborn child under his arms, only to discover that nearly every time, a series of bruises would occur on and under his arms. These were hemorrhages and this was the first major clue that something was wrong with Dad physically. In this picture, you can see the bruising from the hemorrhages on his legs.
After some time, Dad was diagnosed as a Type A Hemophiliac. Simply put, hemophilia is a bleeding disorder in which the blood does not clot properly, causes external and internal bleeding and creates a number of health problems. While hemophilia is a hereditary disease, about 30% of cases have no history of the disease in the family. This was Dad’s case. There was no history in his family. It was simply a gene mutation that caused him to be born as a Type A, or Classic, hemophiliac.
Some people might say, “Strike two.” Strike one was a scandalous family life and strike two was a gruesome disease that came with a fatal prognosis. Dad’s parents were told he would live only a short time, perhaps only a few weeks or months. Strike three?
Maybe not.
Dad did eventually pass away, but he was 52 years old when he died! God gave him a full life, a family of his own, a wealth of friends and a joyful relationship with Jesus! He outlived all the doctors’ predictions, he outpaced his own parents’ lives, and he shifted the trajectory of his family tree. Somewhere in all of the chaos of his life, he broke the cycle of generational unbelief.
This cycle was not broken by his own will, his own ability to rise above circumstances, or his own ingenuity. The cycle was broken because he turned from unbelief to belief in God. He responded to the drawing of the Holy Spirit by believing from the measure of faith God assigned him, (Romans 12:3) and then he continued to move from that faith to more faith (Romans 1:17).
And this is only the tip of the iceberg. You now know the beginning and some of the ending of Dad’s life, but there is so much more of God’s faithfulness in the middle. Dad’s life is a testimony of breaking the cycle of generational unbelief! I hope you come back next week as we walk through Dad’s life, and learn about breaking the cycle of unbelief in your life.
Think About It
Are there cycles of unbelief in my family’s history that need to be broken?
Are there cycles of unbelief that you have tried to break in your own power or ingenuity, but not completely relying on the power of God in your life?
What are some ways you see those cycles manifesting themselves in you, personally? In your family?
Are there cycles of unbelief that have already been broken in your family? Who walked the journey of breaking these cycles and how did it happen?
Pray
Spend some time asking God to reveal any generational patterns of unbelief that might have gone undetected until now. Ask God to give you wisdom, insight and discernment as well as His power to begin to recognize and break free of any unbelief in your life and the lives of your family members. And if you or someone in your family has already walked the road of breaking those cycles, praise God for the freedom and new life you and future generations have been gifted.
“For I am not ashamed of the Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes - the Jew first and also the Greek. “ Romans 1:16 (NLT)