“Lord, I believe; Help my unbelief!”
Christian, pause and take a good look at yourself.
Is your life marked by endless worry? Anxious toil? Need for control? Loud demands? Heavy regret? Desperate hope in what the world has to offer?
These are the marks of a man who has forgotten the presence, goodness, and power of God. This man may be able to ascend mentally to truths about God, but his inner thought life and outward actions will testify what he is actively and truly believing (or not believing) about Him.
Assess your thoughts, words, and actions over the last few days. How many of these failed to include the Lord in any way whatsoever?
What does this say about the God you are believing in? Is the God you remember one who is small, distant, uncaring, impotent or unwise?
Most of us, functionally speaking, are unbelievers. At the extreme end of our doubt and unbelief is the question of whether our God is truly here at all. On the subtler end, we make sense of the attributes of our God based on our daily experiences.
When our belief is right, we will interpret our circumstances based on who we know our God to be. When our belief is wrong, we will interpret God based on our present circumstances.
This week, I am praying that you and I would be given active, meaningful belief in the true person of Christ. That we would see his infinite wonder all around us. That we would correctly understand our lives through the lens of a Christ-centered worldview.
Our understanding of God will rarely be stable or accurate if we have arrived there by trying to figure out what he is doing in the situations in our lives.
I pray that this week, through closeness with the Lord, He would purge our hearts of the marks of unbelief— cynicism, doubt, fear, discouragement, anxiety, worry, and control.
I pray that we would be brought to rest this week in the true and perfect nature of God, revealed to us in the perfect and finished work of Jesus Christ on our behalf.
Mark 9:14-29 (ESV)
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.”
