Other than Mary and Joseph, John the Baptist was the first true believer in Jesus. In the Gospel of John chapter 1, John the Baptist made a public proclamation about Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!.” Though Jesus’s cousin, John admitted that he had not recognized Jesus as the Messiah until he baptized Jesus. The Father had told him that he would be able to recognize the Messiah because the Messiah would be the one on whom the Holy Spirit would descend upon and remain on. When John baptized Jesus that’s exactly what happened. John openly bore witness about Jesus and saying, “This is the Son of God.”
John put all of his eggs in the basket of believing that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God. He openly declared it, and even freely promoted his own disciples to follow Jesus. We can honestly say that John started out with a solid faith in Christ. Later though when John the Baptist was placed in prison he began to have doubts as to whether or not Jesus actually was the promised Messiah. Matthew 11:2 says, “Now when John imprisoned heard of the works of Christ he sent word by his disciples, and said, Are you the Coming One, or shall we look for someone else?”
What happened? John was the first true believer and now he is struggling with unbelief. In response to John’s question Jesus sent word back to John explaining that all these healings that were happening were the manifestation of the kingdom John was looking for. All these miracles were the result of Jesus preaching the gospel of the kingdom’s coming.
Ultimately, John struggled because what Jesus was doing was not what John was expecting it to look like. Have you ever expected Jesus to keep a promise by doing it a certain way and when it started going in different directions than what you expected you began to doubt? Have you ever gone into some ministry situation trusting Christ the do it through you and yet when ministering or praying for a person or speaking to a person it didn’t look like how you thought it was a look like. Maybe it didn’t quite turn out the way you thought it was going to turn out and it caused you to get bent toward yourself questioning whether or not you did something wrong to mess up what God really wanted to do?
I love the way Jesus put it in Matthew 11:6, “And blessed is he who keeps him stumbling over Me.” Do you see it? It wasn’t just that John stumbled over things not looking the way he thought they would look; he actually stumbled over Jesus. John started off in faith and yet struggled with doubt because Jesus was doing it different than he anticipated. He stumbled over Jesus. Christ was there doing His thing but John didn’t stopped trusting that it was still the Christ at work. Jesus was still at work; it’s just that John didn’t recognize it. If there’s something you are trusting Christ with in light of a promise that God has given you, don’t stumble over Jesus in unbelief just because it doesn’t look like what you anticipated. Wait till you see the completion of what Christ is doing, but in the meantime maintain your childlike faith that still acknowledges Him at work even when you don’t understand why He’s doing it the way he’s doing it.
Don’t come away from a ministry situation being bent toward yourself questioning whether or not the anointing was really at work because it didn’t look a certain way. If you went in by faith trust that Jesus did it just the way he wanted to do it.
When we stumble over something it’s because we didn’t see it or recognize it though it was right in front of us. If you are trusting Christ then the anointing was at work exactly the way Jesus wanted it to be at work. Trust that the conversation went exactly the way Jesus wanted it to on your end because you were trusting Him to speak through you, and He did, regardless of how it turned out temporarily. Don’t miss Him and stumble over Him while looking for Him. What you say let’s repent of our stumbling over Jesus.