Today I was reading back through Mark 9:14-29 and it was impressed upon me how these verse deal greatly with spiritual immaturity.  I believe spiritual immaturity is a perpetual problem in the Christian life and we often struggle with this.

I picture the beginning of this passage of scripture where Jesus is coming down the mountain and he draws closer to the crowd he hears these scribes just ripping into the disciples.  I am sure the scribes were belittling the disciples and questioning their ability to even minister.  We know the Scribes did not like Christ and they had probably hoped that if they could discredit the disciples then they would be able to discredit Christ as well.  

What I think is great here is that Christ steps right into the middle of the scene.  Instead of tearing into his disciples for their lack instead he steps in and draws the attention away from them.  In essence he delivered them from humiliation.  We could take a great lesson from this.

When Christ asks what is going on it is the father of the child that responds to him.  Then when the father explains what is going on Christ responds with a rebuke.  In this passage of scripture we see weak faith.  The father displayed weak faith in fact he was part of the faithless generation that Jesus mentions in verse 19.  In addition to this Jesus says “if you can believe” in verse 23.  This is followed by the cry from the father saying “help my unbelief” in verse 24.  

This child had not been healed because faith was weak.  Sometimes we like to harp on the disciples in this passage but it was not just the disciples that displayed that weak faith.  There was a crowd there and no one had enough faith to heal the child.  The father did not have the faith, neither did the disciples, and certainly not the scribes.

However we also have to take notice that the disciples seemed powerless in this circumstance.  We all know what that is like.  The disciples are the very people that should have been able to heal this boy.  There were nine disciples there when the man first came but not a single one of them was able to heal the boy because they lacked power to do so.

Now before we get on a high horse and think we are better then others we must notice the rebuke Christ gave.  He looked directly at that generation standing before Him and rebuked them.  But can we really think we are any better.  I mean isn’t every generation faithless and in reality are we not all being rebuked for it.

I must confess I have often been spiritually immature.  I am not talking about I have failed to pray or read my Bible or something like that but what I am saying is that I have failed to express faith at times.  So often I let my circumstance control me rather than my faith.  But that is why I am thankful for these two verses here 

When He came into the house, His disciples began questioning Him privately, “Why could we not drive it out?”And He said to them, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.”

These verses let us know that Spiritual Power is available and we do not have to me immature.  The disciples wanted to know why they had failed.  They wanted to know the cause.  Jesus had already given them power over evil spirits and they had already cast out evil spirits so what was the problem this time.  Why did they fail when they had succeeded before.  Then Christ gives the answer.

Immaturity and powerlessness an be conquered through prayer and fasting.  Jesus pointed out this one thing the disciples were not living close enough to God.  They were not praying and fasting enough, they did not seek him enough, they did not put Him before all things.  we must crave God so much that other things pale in comparison.

I sit and think how often I have been spiritually immature and let other things step in front of my relationship with the Lord.  How often I have not put him before all things and have put my problems in front of my God.  But it is all taken care of if I only put Him before all things.

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