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 even he had 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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