Morning: The sermon, "We Pray Not, Because We Believe Not," came from Mark 9:14-29. In this passage, Jesus comes upon his disciples caught in an argument. At the center of it all is a father seeking to have his son freed from the power of the demon. Jesus' disciples were unable to cast out the demon, and were thus caught in a sticky situation. Jesus' response is to gently rebuke the unbelief of the father, the crowd and his disciples. When Jesus' disciples ask him why they could drive it out, he tell them that it is because certain demons can only be driven out by prayer. Matthew adds that it is because they lacked the faith necessary. Thus, they failed to pray, because they didn't fully trust.
Through this encounter we learn several things. First, past successes don't guarantee future successes. Each challenged must be faced with renewed trust and prayer. Next, we learn that we need the Lord to continually strengthen our faith. We can also see, throughout this passage, that Jesus is able to handle any problem. Finally, we can see that pray and faith are linked. When we trust that the Lord hears and answers prayers, we pray. Not praying means we are lacking in trust.
Evening: We looked at a few passages concerning the Scripture. Psalm 119:9-16 explored the necessity of the Scriptures for our life. Hebrews 4:12 reminded us that the Scriptures are living an active. 2 Peter 1:20-21 informed us that Scripture did not derive from human wisdom, but was revealed by God. Thus, we were remind we need to approach Scripture with faith.
No comments:
Post a Comment