Friday 27 Oct 2017

October 27: Mark 9:14-29

Key Verse: Mark 9:24
Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

Devotion:
There are many times in our lives when we feel totally helpless; no matter what we try to do, nothing seems to work or go our way. We feel like there is nobody helping us or willing to help us; and yet there is! What is failing to help us is our lack of faith or our unbelief. We may think we are strong Christians and that we have God on our side all the time, or we may feel like we are weak Christians, bending all the rules and not being very successful. Well, whatever side of the fence you think you may be on, we kind of fall in the same boat.

The strong Christians may well find something they just cannot face up to. These disciples did. No matter how much they tried to get rid of the spirit within the man's son, they could not. They had to wait upon Jesus for the final victory over the spirit. Even though they had been told anything is possible through belief, they could not quite go all the way. They were trying to go all the way by themselves. When Jesus came to their assistance He did nothing more than turn it over to God in prayer. He demonstrated absolute faith by giving up the problem totally to God.

As weak Christians we may well find all sorts of things go wrong all the time, or so it seems, and we put it down to being weak. We may find we still get into all sorts of trouble. We may find we don't quite trust our belief. That is the issue. We don't trust! This man cried out to Jesus to help his unbelief. He knew his faith had holes in it and put that down to lack of faith. But seeing Jesus in front of him allowed him to realise his unbelief. We will not get a personal audience with Christ until we get to heaven, but why should our own death and journey to heaven stop us from seeing everything Christ does in our lives now or everything He has already done through passages like this. There is no reason for us not to believe other than our own pride or our giving in to the temptations and stumbling block the evil one has put in our path. You see, Satan is going to continue his best to throw everything in our way. We need to look up to Christ to seek His grace to cover our unbelief, so we can draw on His strength and be totally prepared for everything!

Points to Ponder:
What is your biggest fear in life?

Have you ever asked God to help you with that?