SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/14/2012 9:30:43 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Power Comes From Faith
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Mark 9:14-29
Message of the verses: “14 ¶
When they came back to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around
them, and some scribes arguing with them. 15
Immediately, when the entire crowd saw Him, they were amazed and began
running up to greet Him. 16 And He asked
them, "What are you discussing with them?" 17 And one of the crowd answered Him,
"Teacher, I brought You my son, possessed with a spirit which makes him
mute; 18 and whenever it seizes him, it
slams him to the ground and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth and
stiffens out. I told Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not do
it." 19 And He *answered them and
*said, "O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long
shall I put up with you? Bring him to Me!" 20 They brought the boy to Him. When he saw Him,
immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion, and falling to the ground,
he began rolling around and foaming at the mouth. 21 And He asked his father, "How long has
this been happening to him?" And he said, "From childhood. 22 "It has often thrown him both into the
fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, take pity
on us and help us!" 23 And Jesus
said to him, "’If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes."
24 Immediately the boy’s father cried out
and said, "I do believe; help my unbelief." 25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly
gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "You deaf and mute
spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again."
26 After crying out and throwing him
into terrible convulsions, it came out; and the boy became so much like a
corpse that most of them said, "He is dead!" 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and raised
him; and he got up. 28 When He came into
the house, His disciples began questioning Him privately, "Why could we
not drive it out?" 29 And He said
to them, "This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.’”
In Luke’s account
on this we see that Jesus and His disciples came down from the mountain the
next day so this means that they may have been gone from the other disciples as
much as three days, but probably only two days.
When one thinks that it was probably Mt. Hermon that they went up to and
that it is over 9000 feet in height, then I could understand that it may have
take as much as three days that they would have been gone from the other
disciples. As I read over this account,
and I have been reading over it many times this month I began to wonder how the
other disciples who were not taken felt because they were not with Jesus along
with Peter, James, and John. I think
that sometimes we think that the disciples of Jesus are thought of as men who
were above being human, and this is not the case, for all one has to do is read
through the Gospel accounts to see that they were sinners just like all other
people who are born. When one thinks
about who it was that Jesus chose to be His disciples it is no wonder that
there was troubles between them at times.
Matthew was a dreaded tax collector and Simon was a zealot, someone who
hated Rome, and it was Rome who Matthew was working for when Jesus called
him. These men were with Jesus the
better part of three years, learning from Him and following orders that He had
given to them, and now we see that the three disciples and Jesus came down from
the mountain and see a big problem, and that problem is a lack of faith. In the eleventh chapter of the book of
Hebrews we see the writer take time to talk about the wonderful faith that was
demonstrated throughout the early portions of the OT and then he alludes to
other OT saints who demonstrated faith.
In the 12th chapter of Hebrews we read these words, “1 ¶ Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of
witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin
which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is
set before us, 2 fixing our eyes on
Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him
endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of
the throne of God.” When I was a younger
believer I would read verse one and I would think of a sin that is causing me
to stumble and plug it into the verse, but then one Sunday our Pastor explained
that what the writer was speaking about was the lack of faith as being the sin
that so easily entangles us, and when you think about this he just spends the
entire 11th chapter writing about faith and now he writes about a
sin that causes us to stumble and therefore that would have to be a lack of
faith. This fits well into the story
that we are dealing with in Mark nine for we have to remember that in the sixth
chapter of Mark that Jesus gave authority to his disciples to cast out demons
and do other miracles so the question is why could they not cast out the demon that
was in this boy? The answer has to be a
lack of faith. Faith has to have an
object and the believer’s faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ and our faith can
be the size of a mustard seed, as long as it is placed in the Lord Jesus Christ
will receive an answer. Now this brings
up the subject as to why believer’s prayers are not always answered. Is it because we lack the prober amount of
faith? Jesus stated in this section of
Mark that this demon could only be cast out by prayer, but He also stated to
His disciples in verse 19 that they were part of an unbelieving
generation. Jesus as stated above had
been with these men for almost three years and we can see that He was disappointed
in them, and the reason was a lack of faith.
However when we read verses like this one from John 15: 7 “If you abide
in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done
for you,” we may wonder why our prayers are not answered. This section is a part of Jesus’ teaching of
His disciples right before He goes to the cross and in this section He is
talking about believers bearing fruit.
John MacArthur writes the following in his study Bible on verses 7-10, “True
believers obey the Lord’s commands, submitting to His Word (14:21, 23). Because of their commitment to God’s Word they
are devoted to His will, thus their prayers are fruitful (14:13-14), which puts
God’s glory on display as He answers.”
We know
that Jesus was able to cast out this demon because He has already demonstrated
that He has power over Satan and all of his demons in earlier chapters of Mark
and because He is the Son of God we know that He has the power to cast this
demon out of this boy. Now when we speak
of the boy and the boy’s father we have compassion on them because of the
situation they find themselves in. I
think that it would be fair to state the same thing about this boy that Jesus
did about the blind man (probably a young man) in John chapter nine. The disciples wanted to know who sinned the
boy or the father to cause him to be born blind and Jesus stated it was for the
glory of God. Casting the demon out of
this boy would be to the glory of God too.
I like the
statement that the father made in verse 24 when he states I do believe, help my
unbelief. I can relate with that
statement. One can see that the father
had faith in Jesus, but one can also see that his faith was small, kind of like
a mustard seed, but Jesus could work with someone like this, for he did have a
small amount of faith.
It wouldn’t
be a SD of mine if I did not quote something from Dr. Wiersbe and so I want to
quote something that he wrote about the disciples of Jesus and the authority
that He had given them earlier. “The
authority that Jesus given them was effective only if exercised by faith, but
faith must be cultivated through spiritual discipline and devotion. It may be that the absence of their Lord, or
His taking the three disciples with Him and leaving them behind, had dampened
their faith. Not only did their failure embarrass
them, but it also robbed the Lord of glory and gave the enemy opportunity to
criticize. It is our faith in Him that glorifies
God (Rom. 4:20). Romans 4:17-22 is about
Abraham and Sarah and their faith in God to believe in the promise that God had
given them to have a child and verse twenty reads as follows, “yet, with
respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving
glory to God.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I have been a believer for over 38 years and
Abraham had been a believer for 25 years when Isaac was born to him, so I hope
that it can be stated to me that I have grown strong in faith, and that this
will bring glory to God.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Continue to abide in the vine
in order to produce the fruit that God has planned for me to produce in
eternity past. (Eph. 2:10).
Memory verses for the week:
2Peter 1:8-10
8 For if these qualities are yours and are
increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who lacks these qualities is blind or
short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. 10
Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His
calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will
never stumble
8/14/2012 10:51:27 AM
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