Mark 9:23 And
Jesus said to him, “If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.”
All things
are possible to him who believes!! Jesus references belief or unbelief many
times in His teachings. If Jesus thinks that this topic is important enough to
mention many times, then I believe it is an important topic for us to take note
of. What does it mean to believe? I
think most of us know the obvious answer to this question, it is that a person
is telling the truth, so we believe them and leave it at that, but I think
Jesus is going much deeper than this. I think that He wants us to look at the core
of our beliefs.
The Greek
word originally used for the word believe in this text is “pisteuo”, which
means to have faith (in, upon, or with respect to, a person or thing), i.e.
credit: by implication to entrust (especially one’s spiritual well-being to
Christ): believe, commit (to trust), put in trust with.
When you see
the definition of the word originally used it is more than just believing what
Jesus said but it is believing or putting your trust in Him. I think this is very evident when we back up
and see why Jesus said this in the first place.
If we back
up in Mark 9, we see that Jesus was not with all the disciples because He and
three of His disciples (Peter, James and John) were up on a high mountain and
when they came back down, there was a large crowd and some scribes surrounding
the remaining disciples arguing with them. Now, I have read this scripture
several times and did not really get the reality of what was happening. Think
about it, Jesus went up on a high mountain. Back in this day, it was not a
short trip because they had to (more than likely) walk up this mountain. There
wasn’t a car around for them to make this a couple hour trip, so it may have
taken days because the scripture says a high mountain.
When Jesus
came back down from His long trip, He sees a crowd (including scribes) arguing
with His disciples and the scripture doesn’t say how long this was going on but
it could have been days, so He asks what they are talking about. The scribes were
experts regarding Jewish Law, so this appears to be a volatile situation that
Jesus is walking into. Someone in the crowd
steps forward to tell Jesus that he brought his child to Jesus to cast out a
spirit and the disciples could not help in Jesus absence.
Why couldn’t
the disciples help this child? They had seen Jesus heal the sick and cast out spirits,
they knew the power was there, but they lacked the confidence to help. Jesus
walked into a crowd of unbelief and maybe volatile, which was not an atmosphere
where the glory of God can manifest. In Matthew 13:58, Jesus had gone to His
hometown where people questioned who He was, and He did not do many miracles
there because of their unbelief. There needs to be an atmosphere of belief for
manifestation of God’s power and Jesus addresses this in the scripture above.
He was asked, by the father of the child, “if He could do anything” and Jesus’
reply is “If You can?”. Jesus does seem
to be a little frustrated with those who still hold onto their unbelief and doubt
after all that He had done. Once again, Jesus takes care of business and casts
out the spirit and the disciples wanted to know why they couldn’t, so Jesus
tells them.
Mark 9:29 And
He (Jesus) said to them, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.”
This statement
by Jesus is not talking about how He cast out the spirit because when you read
the account in Mark, He commanded the spirit to come out. Jesus is answering
the question asked by His disciples. Why could we not drive it out? Jesus is addressing
the disciple’s unbelief. Our belief in
the finished works of Jesus is vital and cannot be compromised by what we see
in front of us. When we are facing something that we are unsure of, take it in
prayer to God, just as Jesus told the disciples to do.
I would encourage
you to read Mark 9:14-29 and see what God has to say to you in these
scriptures. Try to visualize exactly what was going on and what type of
atmosphere there may have been. I believe when we take the time to really
understand what may have been going on in these scriptures, they come alive.
God wants to
help us through our unbelief and get us to a place where we can rely and trust
in Him. Paul states this very prayer in Ephesians 1:17-19:
…that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so
that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory
of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His
power toward us who believe.
Many times,
we are asking God to bring us a miracle when what we really need is to know
more about Him and the greatness of His power. You notice that it states, “toward
us who believe”. This may be a time of asking God to help us understand and
help us believe all that He has for us. The father of the child in the story we
read in Mark 9 did this. We can too. I pray that we all come to a place of pure
belief in all the finished works of Jesus and the love that God has for us.
