This is a devotional with my thoughts added to verses from the Bible. I highly encourage you to dig into the word with your own thoughts. The Daily Devotion series is one way to do this. However, I know that sometimes we want to read other people’s ideas about Bible passages, so I am starting the Everyday series. I hope and pray that these posts will draw you nearer to Jesus.
DAY 1–Remember to pray before you begin.
Mark 9:17-27 Help my unbelief!
One of the multitude answered, “Teacher, I brought to you my son, who has a mute spirit; and wherever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth, and wastes away. I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they weren’t able.” He answered him, “Unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to me.” They brought him to him, and when he saw him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground, wallowing and foaming at the mouth. He asked his father, “How long has it been since this has come to him?” He said, “From childhood. Often it has cast him both into the fire and into the water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us, and help us.” Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out with tears, “I believe. Help my unbelief!” When Jesus saw that a multitude came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to him, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again!” After crying out and convulsing him greatly, it came out of him. The boy became like one dead; so much that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand, and raised him up; and he arose.
Jesus asked how long the son had displayed his symptoms. The father answered Jesus’ question but tacked on “if you can” to his request to help his son. Picture Jesus giving the man a penetrating look as He repeated those doubting words. Then Jesus replied that all things are possible for those who believe. Was Jesus showing the father that part of the problem before had been the man’s own lack of faith? The father began crying. Maybe, he had started crying before as he watched his child rolling around on the ground, or maybe he started as he realized that his own attitude and words might have kept his child from rescue. He loved his son so much that he felt despair at his own attitude. At this point, the desperate man cried out the famous words that have brought hope to many people throughout the centuries, “I believe. Help my unbelief.”
Jesus consented to heal the boy, but as the demon came out of the son, he collapsed in a seemingly lifeless heap. The man’s faith was tried even further as he saw his son’s limp body and heard people in the crowd murmuring that his son was dead. His hopes plummeted once again. He watched silently as Jesus calmly bent over the boy, grabbed his hand, and pulled him to his feet. As Jesus did so, life flowed back into the boy’s limbs, and the boy stood on his own. Now the father’s heart leapt, and joy filled him as he rushed over to hug his son tightly.
Faith is the key that unlocks doors. It does not matter what the problem or situation is. God can deal with it. When we think that our own problems are too large or small for God to overcome, we need to ask Jesus to help our unbelief. However, the problem many of us have is not that we doubt God’s ability to heal. Instead, it is that we do not think that we will be the recipient of that healing. After all, not all of those who have prayed for healing have received a miracle. Jesus even touched on this situation when he talked about the fact that there were many widows during the time of drought in King Ahab’s day, but only one was helped by Elijah. “But truly I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land. Elijah was sent to none of them, except to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. There were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed, except Naaman, the Syrian” (Luke 4:25-27). When we have doubts about whether God will answer our prayers with healing and help, we still need to say with the father of the demon possessed boy, “I believe. Help my unbelief.” Maybe, God will answer with a negative for healing, but He will always provide help. We never want to take the chance of closing the door of healing by a lack of faith as the father in this passage almost did.
Faith in God can open doors and give us confidence in any situation. Jesus was so confident of the power He had in connection with the Father through the Holy Spirit that He was surprised when people did not believe. He knew what He could do in this connection. Why don’t we have this same confidence? For many of us, the reason that we do not know what can be done is simply because we have not had the experience of working with God to accomplish great things. We have not claimed God’s promises by stepping out in faith. We have worked only within our own limited understanding of what is possible, so we do not try for the impossible. Because we limit our activities for God, we do not let God work wonders in us. While we must be careful never to fall into presumption, we can always count on God’s promises. If the Spirit tells you to move, MOVE out in faith with confidence in your Savior.
DAY 2–Remember to pray before you begin.
Mark 9:28-32 They were afraid to ask Him
When he had come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we cast it out?” He said to them, “This kind can come out by nothing, except by prayer and fasting.” They went out from there, and passed through Galilee. He didn’t want anyone to know it. For he was teaching his disciples, and said to them, “The Son of Man is being handed over to the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, on the third day he will rise again.” But they didn’t understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him.
The disciples’ confidence had been lowered. They had been mulling over their failure to heal the boy and the scribes’ accusations. They waited until they had privacy and would not be interrupted to ask what had gone wrong. Jesus informed them that the only way to drive out that kind of demon was through prayer. Some versions say prayer and fasting. Many people assume that Jesus meant that the disciples had to put a lot of personal effort into working up the power to get rid of the problem. However, Jesus meant something far different than getting oneself all worked up. The contrast between Jesus and the disciples in this situation is obvious. Jesus did not need to perform extra actions to rid the boy of his demon, but He said that the disciples did because they needed to prepare themselves to be open to the Spirit working in them. God, who created the world and maintains its complex interactions every second, can easily fix any physical problem and cast out any demon, so the necessity of prayer was not about giving God more power. Instead, it was the disciples who needed something more, something beyond what they started out with—a stronger connection with the infinite God of heaven.
From their lodging for the night, the group left the next day to hike through Galilee. Jesus was trying to travel in secret at this point. They had been way up north in Gentile territory away from their customary localities, so the usual crowds did not yet know they had returned. The reason that Jesus wanted secrecy was so that He had time to instruct his disciples. He, Moses, and Elijah had finalized their plans on the mountain, and Jesus was now on His way to the cross. He needed time with the disciples to try to get them to understand the lessons He had already taught them and to reveal the next steps in their future. He informed them that He was going to be taken prisoner by men and killed and after three days be resurrected.
The passage says that they did not understand Him. For us in these modern times, it is simple to understand what Jesus was saying, but before the fact maybe it was not so comprehensible. Jesus had not yet raised Lazarus from the dead, so maybe rising from the dead was a new concept. Or maybe they associated resurrection with the end of the world and thought that He was saying that the world would end three days after He died. The prophecies may have all been mixed up in their heads, and they were afraid to ask Him to explain because they did not want to think about the judgment.
Like the disciples, we have many reasons to fear today. Our fears may be the result of a faulty understanding of what God has told us, or it may be that we feel unprepared to face a future that we clearly understand. Fear can even be imposed on a person externally by dark forces. There could also be legitimate fear if someone we love is threatened. In all cases, there is one answer to fear. Take it to God in prayer. The disciples’ lack of comprehension is typical of how all humans avoid coming to terms with negative emotions. However, when the disciples did not ask Jesus about their fear, they were unprepared when the trial that they were avoiding arrived. They did not believe in Jesus rising from the grave in three days because they had not taken His warnings seriously and had refused to think about them. In avoiding their fear instead of taking it to Jesus, they lost their potential comfort in the time of trials. It is possible for us to also lose the comfort that Jesus could have provided if we avoid our fear rather than speaking to our Savior about it.
DAY 3–Remember to pray before you begin.
Mark 9:33-37 Arguing
He came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing among yourselves on the way?” But they were silent, for they had disputed one with another on the way about who was the greatest. He sat down, and called the twelve; and he said to them, “If any man wants to be first, he shall be last of all, and servant of all.” He took a little child, and set him in the middle of them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever receives one such little child in my name, receives me, and whoever receives me, doesn’t receive me, but him who sent me.”
Have you ever tried to walk on a path with more than two people side by side? It is impossible for a large group to hike all clumped together for long distances. The reality is that the twelve disciples plus Jesus would have needed a lot of space as they traveled, so it was probably quite usual for them to walk strung out in groups of one to three since any more in a group becomes unwieldy. In other words, there were five to seven little groups of men all strung out along the path. Some of these little clusters may have been talkative while others were quiet. In this context, an argument erupted among them. Maybe several of the groups joined in the discussion. Jesus already knew as they walked what was going on, but He waited for an appropriate time to discuss their wrongheadedness with them. Once they reached Capernaum and were settled into Peter’s home, Jesus confronted the debaters with a question. At first some of them may have searched their minds trying to remember what they had talked about. Others may have still been seething about the argument.
Jesus had to confront the issue because it was splitting apart his disciples. He needed them to be a team united in love. He also needed to set them straight about the kind of kingdom they would be leading. This was not a temporal worldly kingdom based on power. It was an eternal spiritual kingdom based on service. The disciples were still judging by what they “knew” rather than by what Jesus had taught them.
Jesus sat down somewhere, maybe on a bench outside, so that they could all fit or maybe on a chair in the parlor so they would have privacy. Not all of the disciples may have been present for the question, since it is usual for a large group to spread out around a house and outside rather than staying cramped together in one room, so it was necessary to call all of the twelve to gather around and listen. Then Jesus picked up a little child (some commentators believe that this was Peter’s son) and used the child as an illustration of the definition of true greatness.
The first lesson was that the greatest leader is the one who serves the most people. Ambition makes a person small in the eyes of heaven. Seeing to the needs of those that one is leading makes one worthy. Then Jesus spoke of the kind of people a great leader serves. Some people feel comfortable being a servant when they are performing their duties for an influential master. After all, this would give a person the power to boss everyone else around. Jesus told them that their greatness would come from serving the powerless. Their power would come from taking care of the weak who could not elevate them in the eyes of the world.
Jesus was teaching His disciples the principle of the kingdom of heaven—the greatest serves and puts everyone before himself. Then Jesus gave them the priority of heaven–to accept and cherish the weak, the helpless, the incompetent, the children. From a worldly standpoint, this is foolishness. The world says that we need to protect our own lives rather than giving them up in service to those who will not or cannot give us anything in return. Social media abounds with memes about protecting yourself and not letting anyone use you. Unless you become famous for your generosity, what good does it do to pour out your energy and effort in helping anonymous (and most likely undeserving) people. What the world does not understand is that the Father is the ultimate recipient of the acceptance and love that we pour out on the weak and undeserving. The Father asks us to serve others because they cannot serve themselves, not because they can pay the good deed forward. When we serve others simply because we see that they have a need, we are showing the kind of leadership found in the kingdom of God and demonstrating our love for God.