Should I Be Doing Miracles?: Daily Thoughts from Mark (Mark 9:14-29)

You have no doubt heard reports of certain Christians or ministries experiencing the power of miracles in their work.  What do you do with that?  Immediately discount it?  Immediately embrace it?  What about in your own life?  Are you seeing God’s kingdom power at work in and through you?

The kingdom has not come yet, but Jesus has been introducing his disciples to the power of the kingdom at work in their lives and the lives of those they minister to.  Yet they find themselves on this occasion unable to harness the power of the kingdom.  What is wrong?

And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. And he asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?” And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” (Mark 9:14-29, ESV) 

After an amazing demonstration of the power of the kingdom on the mountain top, Jesus comes down to a less than stellar demonstration of the kingdom below.  His disciples cannot heal a man’s son of a demon.

The man questions whether Jesus can heal his son and Jesus calls him on it.  So the man desperately asks for help for his unbelief.  Faith is believing that Jesus can heal, not necessarily that he will.  We don’t always know the will of God for healing (see 2 Corinthians 12:1-10).  This is not to say that Jesus does not want to heal in every case, but that healing doesn’t always accomplish his bigger purpose.  

In this case it did by serving as a rebuke to the faithlessness of the generation he was facing.  It may be that our generation is just as faithless.  With the disciples we might need to ask, “Why couldn’t we (fill in the blank)?”  We are lacking in prayer, lacking in a strong, intimate relationship with the Father that Jesus had.

I have had the experience of commanding a demon to depart and he would not.  He knew I didn’t really believe I had Jesus’ authority to remove him.  Prayer was the essential interaction I had to have with God to affirm His authority in me to finally be able to command this demon.  How many situations do we face where our faith relationship with God must be bolstered by prayer, by talking to Him about it?  I believe, help my unbelief!