
“And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and kneeling before him, said, “Lord have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.” And Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.” And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. The disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?“ He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” – Matthew 17: 14-20
As a pastor and a church planter, I have certainly suffered my share of defeats, as I am sure that we all have. This can often leave us confused, because as followers of Christ we are to be “more than conquerers,” right? The truth is, that we can be servants of God and yet will suffer a defeat every now and then. In Matthew 17, we see the disciples attempt to cast a demon out of a boy, but were unable to do so. This left them looking a little bush league, so the father of the boy had to take his son to the big guns, Jesus, to heal him. After Jesus casts the demon out of the boy, the disciples come to him…defeated, embarrassed (notice they came to Him in private) and seeking answers. “Why could we not cast out?” the disciples probe. And Jesus replies with a gentle rebuke, “Because of your little faith.”
There is a key word that sticks out to me as I read the disciples question. “Why couldn’t WE cast it out?” WE? If they weren’t placing their faith in Christ, who were they relying on to heal the boy? Answer: themselves. You see, they had mistaken their own abilities for God’s power. However, before you get to down on the boys for such a bonehead move, ask yourself whether or not you often do the same. For example, there are times as a pastor that I get discouraged (as the disciples did) because attendance is low on a Sunday, or people aren’t very responsive. My immediate response is to think, “was it something I said?” Without fail I think, “am I not a very good leader?”
The bottom line is, we often put faith in our own abilities and call it faith in God. No doubt, the disciples thought they were doing the right thing…the godly thing. The problem was that they were trying to do a God sized task…independent of God. How many times do we do the same thing? God desires to use each and every one of us to be agents of redemption, to be proof of Him to a broken world. God calls us to do big things. However, it is impossible to do those things apart from Him and independent of His power. If we are to tackle such God-sized tasks, we have to go to Jesus before and not after. True faith seeks Him first, apart from whom we can do nothing.