Thursday, May 23, 2013

Daily Gospel Devotional 2013: Help our unbelief

Matthew 17:14-18 / Mark 9:14-27 / Luke 9:37-42…

Peter, James, and John had been on a mountain where they saw Jesus in His glorified state. They also saw Moses and Elijah, and they heard the audible voice of God from above as confirmation. It was a wonderful experience, but as soon as they come down the mountain to meet the other disciples, they walk right into trouble.

The other disciples were being questioned by the scribes about why they could not cast out a demon from a boy. There are many people that need help, but we are often powerless to help them, it seems. Yet it is not that we are helpless to help others; it is that we look to our own power, instead of reaching out in faith to God before we reach out to help others. 

Jesus is not saying that whatever we want we can have if we just believe. He was delivering a promise to this particular man. Jesus is saying that the healing of the son is God’s will and that He had the power to do it. What the man needed was faith in that. Our faith should always be based on the clear teaching of the Word of God. If God promises something, we can believe He will do it if we ask by faith (1 John 5:14-15). However, we must learn to rightly interpret the Bible (2 Timothy 2:15), so that we don’t try and claim promises that are not really there for us.

Sometimes it isn’t that we don’t believe in God, it is that we don’t believe that we need to study. Great experiences are wonderful but we must come down from the mountain and dive into the Scriptures (2 Peter 1:17-19). Our mountaintop doesn’t exclude us from our study desk.  

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

2 comments:

MrsEvenSo... said...

Our mountaintop doesn’t exclude us from our study desk.

Too many times we want to skip the study desk & go straight to the mountaintop. Microwave mountaintop experience mentality seems to be prevalent in today's religious society. Help us Lord Jesus!

Even So... said...

Great comment!