Mark 9:16 “What is all this arguing about?” Jesus asked.
17 One of the men in the crowd spoke up and said, “Teacher, I brought my son so you could heal him. He is possessed by an evil spirit that won’t let him talk. 18 And whenever this spirit seizes him, it throws him violently to the ground. Then he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast out the evil spirit, but they couldn’t do it.”
19 Jesus said to them, “You faithless people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”
observation
What a situation that Jesus came upon, there is a great uproar because the disciples could not cast a demon out of a boy, perhaps they were too scared because of the violent behavior of the demon.
The disciple’s lack of faith is frustrating to Jesus but he seems to be less upset by the small amount of faith that the boy’s father exhibits. The disciples have seen a lot of miracles and have had the opportunity to have their faith exercised and grown beyond what the father has and yet the father has at least a “mustard seed” size faith and he is crying out for his faith to become greater than it is.
Mark 9:24 The father instantly cried out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!”
It is amazing that someone else was casting out demons in Jesus name and the disciples had the nerve to tell him that he should stop doing it just because he was not a part of their group.
Mark 9:38 “Teacher,” said John, “we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”
When the disciples saw the man cast out a demon perhaps they were proud, maybe they said to themselves “I can do that” but at this point they are probably jealous because they were not able to do it.
We should join in with the man and make this our prayer: “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!”
application
I need to have more faith, I hope that I am not being like the disciples and doing my “religious” work without the power of faith, I will fail just as quickly as they did.
prayer
Lord, increase my faith!
