Mark 9 - Matters of Faith
Mark chapter 9 covers the theme of faith & discipleship where it begun with a supernatural encounter of the transfiguration of Jesus Christ up in a high mountain part where Peter, James & John were the three key witness. God shown them who our Lord Jesus Christ is, and what God is able to do, and what happened to Moses and Elijah. Moses and Elijah were the important figures of the forefathers from hundreds of years ago but God showed Peter, James & John the other side of the realm or how a spirit become that is logic defying even to this age. There’s no scientific explanation that can satisfy this fully yet. This is one of the many spiritual encounters that can only be experienced and not explained. The encounter challenges every logical cell in a human brain so even Peter did not know what to do but just blurted something out of terror of the unknown, for they were fishermen & they made a living by watching the ways of the seas, waves, wind, water currents & with much experience they can put two and two together as explanation of the ways of things & nature.
Mark joins the scriptures to put together a theme of faith that is much deeper which can only be reveal as we serve God in different ministry & living a Christlike life in our journey of faith. The failure of casting out an unclean spirit out of a boy who had epilepsy & unable to speak & hear revealed that the disciples did not depend on God totally for Jesus Christ told them it can only come out by prayer. For those who have ministered in healing & deliverance department or cast out demons from people before, it is cleared that from the beginning, it is effortless because they know that they don’t have the power & relied totally on God’s power. However as time goes by, a spiritual pride may slip in which causes the minister to fall into deception that they have the power, as an elite class which John was rebuked by Jesus Christ for stopping others from casting out demon just because they were not in the same group. So as time goes by, these ministers thought that they were holier than others & they need to maintain that stature hence when they started to rely on themselves, their ministry failed. This is exactly what the disciples were experiencing. Prayer means relying on God which many people might laugh at or even criticized at, note that this is in the context of faith, total reliance on God, not towards those who stays idle intentionally because of laziness.
Faith requires open heart & mind, but especially total reliance on God even when we can’t explain it. We do not rely on our experience nor the worldly explanation when we follow our Lord Jesus Christ in faith, this again is in the context of salvation & sharing the gospel of God, living a faithful life. As the world will keep on making noises about how can prayer help or how can faith do anything in the problematic world & society? I take solace in when we depend on God, we pray, we rely not on our own power nor might but on God Himself. Then do our best in living our lives diligently, righteously according to God’s will. May God, our Father, our Lord Jesus Christ & the Holy Spirit helps us to rely on Him more and more.