This morning in our series ‘The Miraculous & The Mundane’, we looked at Mark 9:14-29 (see also Matthew 17:14-20), the account of Jesus healing a demon-possessed boy when his disciples could not. We may feel that it was unreasonable to expect his disciples to do miracles: surely only Jesus could do that? But as John 14:9-13 and Luke 9:1-2 make plain, Jesus did not perform miracles because He was the Son of God; He had authority from His Father to do these things and gave that authority to His disciples as well. He was clearly frustrated by His disciples’ lack of faith and we see from this account not only Jesus’s power over everything, but the revolutionary truth that ‘everything is possible for the one who believes.’ (Mark 9:23)
This scene is set just after the Transfiguration, when God has declared ‘This is my Son, whom I love.’ (Mark 9:7) There, Peter, James and John were left dazzled by the brightness of God’s glory, but ultimately saw only Jesus. Our eyes need to be firmly fixed on Jesus rather than on the needs surrounding us. As Matt Redman puts it, ‘The first step for a worshipper is to confidently get to grips with just how magnificent and mighty God is. The next step is to let that confidence in God seep into the very depths of our hearts and minds, forming a holy confidence on the inside of us.’
Jesus was secure in His identity as God’s Son and in who God was: ‘Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God.’ (John 13:3) Knowing who we are in God and who God is are the keys to the miraculous; they are also the keys to a contented, happy life.
The boy’s father reflects the tension many of us feel as he says, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”’ (Mark 9:24) All of us struggle with the battle between the old nature and the new nature (Rom 7:15-19) We must learn to move from unbelief to belief, from doubt to faith, from insecurity to security, and this can only be done through prayer and the word. Jesus reminds us that apart from Him, we can do nothing (John 15:5); if He Himself could only do what He saw His Father doing (John 5:19-20), then we too must learn to make our relationship with God our priority. Only by prayer and faith (which comes through hearing the message of Christ) can we access the miraculous in our everyday lives. We must see God as Almighty, realise everything is possible for those who believe and ask for His help to overcome any area of our lives where unbelief reigns.
