“Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24, NKJ)
The third gift of the Spirit, the gift of faith, is unfortunately often misunderstood. In the teachings of Days 16 and 17 we spoke about the role that faith plays in your functioning within the kingdom of God and that without faith you can’t please God (Heb 11:6). We also pointed out the fact that Paul says we are saved through faith (Eph 2:8). We also explained that there is no such thing as blind faith – it must always be based on what God says.
The gift of faith has got nothing to do with the foundation of ‘faith’ of Christian doctrine (see Heb 6:2). Most theologians interpret this gift of the Spirit incorrectly as being faith that is given to you so that you (who, according to them, have been predestined to be saved) can also receive a gift of faith so that you can believe in God. This is not Scriptural.
A good example of where this gift of the Spirit was demonstrated, is in Mark 9:17-30 where they brought a boy with a mute spirit to Jesus. Ever since the boy was a child, this spirit had tried to kill the boy by throwing him into fire and into water. Jesus’ disciples could not drive out this spirit and thus He said to them: “O faithless generation …” This is a core aspect of functioning in spiritual gifts: YOU MUST BELIEVE. Each gift of the Spirit must be mixed with faith (Heb 4:2) before it manifests. Jesus says to them in verse 23: “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” Often a situation overwhelms you and that is when you pray and ask for a gift of faith.
After Jesus gave this very important key regarding the practice of spiritual gifts to the boy’s father and to the disciples in order to teach them that the spiritual realm only comes into operation by faith, “the father of the child cried out and said with tears, ‘Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!’” (verse 24). This is a demonstration of someone whose faith let them down and then – for the supernatural event to occur – asked for a gift of faith so that the miracle could happen.
- Sela: We have already learnt that faith comes from hearing the word of God (Rom 10:17). What would the role of Col 3:16 be in this regard and how does it change your attitude to memorising Scripture?
- Read: Gen 46; Ps 46; Matt 16
- Memorise: Matt 16:15-19.
- Going deeper: Connect Mark 9:19 and 29 with each other and try to explain these verses.
