Faith in Jesus, Not in Ourselves

Matthew 17:14 – At the foot of the mountain, a large crowd was waiting for them. A man came and knelt before Jesus and said, ¹⁵ “Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. ¹⁶ So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn’t heal him.”

¹⁷ Jesus said, “You faithless and corrupt people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” ¹⁸ Then Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy, and it left him. From that moment the boy was well.

¹⁹ Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, “Why couldn’t we cast out that demon?”   ²⁰ “You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.” (NLT)

In this passage the disciples were unable to cast out a demon.  We should note that Jesus had previously given the disciples the authority to cast out demons (Matthew 10:8), and they had been successful at casting out demons in the past (Luke 10:17).  Now when they were unsuccessful in casting out demons, Jesus tells them that they did not have enough faith.  This passage can teach us much about ministry.

First, it should teach us not to get into the rut of doing ministry the same way all of the time.  The disciples had been successful in casting out demons in the past, and now they were most likely going about their ministry duties in pretty much the same way, expecting pretty much the same results.  Every situation, like every person, is different.  The methods for success that we may have had in ministry a year ago, or even a month ago, may not work today.  We need to address every opportunity for ministry as a unique opportunity.  Even if our ministry is greeting people at the door of the church, our next time of service may be completely different than the past.  We should enter into every time of service and ministry with prayer, asking for the presence of the Holy Spirit, never taking for granted that our time of service will be the same old thing.

Next, this passage teaches us that no matter what success we may have had, we need to go to Jesus when we are confronted with a challenge.  I find it interesting that while the father of the demon possessed man went to the disciples first, when they were unsuccessful it was the father that went to Jesus – and all the while the disciples seemed to have waited in the background. It was the disciples’ ministry to cast out demons, when they were unsuccessful they should have gone straight to Jesus.

This is not to say that we should not point people in the right direction when we are unable to help them, but when we have a ministry task we should be quick to go to Jesus in prayer.  Not going to Jesus while we are engaging in ministry shows that our faith is in ourselves, and not in Jesus.  When our faith is in ourselves, we have set ourselves up for failure. 

Today, let us not only be people of faith, but people whose faith is in Jesus! 

Posted by Ramón Torres