“I Believe; Help My Unbelief!”

“And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes. Immediately, the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”  (Mark 9:21-24 ESV)

Mark continues his account of the Life of Jesus in Chapter 9 with the miracle of the Transfiguration. This miracle was restricted to only three of His apostles, John, his brother James, and Peter. Much speculation has been made as to why these three were chosen, but we are not told in Scripture why our Lord chose them for this special meeting between Elijah, Moses, and Jesus. We are given the purpose of this holy meeting in Luke 9:30-31, where we are told, “And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”  The death, burial, and resurrection are integral to the New Covenant that Jesus would soon institute. There is no way to overemphasize the importance of the New Covenant that God has made with His creation.

Unlike the conditional Mosaic Covenant, where God promised blessings if His people obeyed His laws and curses if they did not. The New Covenant is unconditional; it does not depend on our faithfulness to God but on God’s faithfulness to us. It is not our obedience to God that secures eternal life with the Father, but the New Covenant depends on the obedience of Jesus to the Father’s Will. The New Covenant was God’s plan from the beginning of creation, a way that all people, Jew and Gentile, have access to eternal life through the grace of our loving God. You see, the object of our faith has never changed. Under the Mosaic Covenant, people were declared righteous because they believed that God would provide the Messiah, who would save His people from their sin. Now under the New Covenant, we are declared righteous because we believe that God has provided the Messiah, the Lord Jesus, to save us from our sin, Jew and Gentile. You see, the object of saving faith has always been Jesus.

As is Mark’s style, we see that right after Jesus, Peter, John, and James came down from the Mount of Transfiguration, where God spoke to all of them, saying, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him,” they encountered a large crowd. One of those in the crowd had a son who was tormented by an evil spirit and came to Jesus, hoping for healing. Jesus did not rush the father but allowed him time to explain the urgency of his need, with the father saying, “But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” It is Jesus’ response that really catches our attention. He repeats the man’s words back to him, “If you can!” Remember that Jesus knows the heart and doesn’t depend on how well we put our hearts' concerns into words. When Jesus rebukes the father with “If you can!” He is calling into question the man’s confidence that Jesus is indeed able to do what is asked of Him, to cast out the demon that possesses his son.

Unfortunately, that is how we often approach our Heavenly Father. We half heartedly, and many times as a “last resort,” ask God to rectify a problem that we haven’t been able to solve on our own. We timidly ask God to help, “if you can.” Not sure if even God can resolve this problem for us. This type of prayer reminds me of an exhortation from James 1:6, “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.”  That might be the reason some of our prayers seem unanswered: we aren't praying in faith, believing that our God is indeed able. We are like the father who timidly comes to Jesus, asking Him to heal his son, “if you can”.

Now, before you think I’m being too harsh with the father, we know that he did “believe” to some extent, after all, he had heard that Jesus healed others. But we also hear the father say, “I believe; help my unbelief!” Now he has the right idea; no one can help our unbelief except Jesus himself. Belief or faith isn’t something that we can produce on our own. It is a God-given confidence that persuades us to rely completely on God and to be assured that He keeps His promises.

Friends, when we go to the Father in prayer, we shouldn’t go half-heartedly with the attitude of “If you can, will you help?  We should be completely persuaded that our God is indeed able. Instead of asking God to help our unbelief, we should include as our Savior did in his prayer in Gethsemane, “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours will be done.”

Our God can do all that we ask; there should be no doubt about that.

"Living in Grace is not about what I can do, but about what Jesus has already done!"