Having Faith

In the Book of Matthew, we read about a man who brought his demon-possessed son to Jesus' disciples for healing as the boy had seizures causing him to fall into the fire or into water. The disciples, try as they may, we're not able to heal him or rid him f this demon. 

When Jesus was approached by the boy's father, asking for his help, Jesus gave perhaps his  strongest rebuke to his disciples, “You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me" (Matt 17:17).

After Jesus healed the boy, his disciples why they couldn't heal him. Jesus told them it was because of they had so little faith (v. 20). Mark's account adds, "This kind comes out only by prayer" (Mark 9:29).

Perhaps a better question for the disciples would have been, "Why were you so upset and disappointed with us?"  They didn't seem to get the point that it was not the difficulty of the demon but the dense ness of the disciples. They were suffering from a misplaced faith: "why couldn't we?"  Their faith was focused on themselves, therefore they were faithless in this case. 

They were so full of self and their work of casting out demons that they didn't even consider going to the Father in prayer. What are we doing wrong,what could we have done differently, how can we improve our effectiveness?  Sounds like some church board meetings I have been in where our focus was on our activity instead of in prayer and dependence on the Father. 

Do you see why Jesus said they had too little faith to help this boy? Because their faith was in themselves and their activity - no prayer needed here, we've got this. Except they didn't. And neither do we. 

We can be so focused on our church activity that we can become totally useless in helping those God sends our way. We can be so sure of our focus that we lose focus on God. We can have so much faith in our way of going about things that we go about without the power of God.  Jus' Sayn.