Redoubled Concentration

10/3/2020

Mark 9:29 “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.”

Having a personal relationship with Jesus means everything to me. It keeps me grounded and gives me wings. It fills me with hope and purpose. It humbles me, and makes me so grateful that the Savior of the world listens to me when I pray, hearing my heart when I cannot find the words. He loves me, and He loves you.

Again today, Chambers is taking a verse from the text about Jesus casting out an impure spirit from a boy. When His disciples asked why they could not drive out the spirit, verse 29 was Jesus’ response. This, of course, can only be done by the power of God, and it is still true to this day. All we need, it says in scripture, is faith as big as a mustard seed to move mountains. Chambers writes, “The answer lies in a personal relationship to Jesus Christ. This can come forth by nothing but by concentration and redoubled concentration on Him.”

The boy’s father asks Jesus to help if He can. Jesus’ response is in verse 23, “’If you can?’ said Jesus. ‘Everything is possible for one who believes.’” The father’s response is unusual at first in verse 24,”Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, ‘I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!’” So, he tells Jesus he does believe and then asks for help to overcome unbelief? How odd. However, when I started to consider what this man had gone through, watching his son be possessed all of his young life, I understood this statement more. The father so desperately wanted his son to be healed that he claimed faith initially, but in his human emotion and exhaustion there was a part of him that just didn’t think it was possible. Have you ever been there? I sure have. I pray for something in full faith, and then a small doubt creeps in (we know who causes that to happen), followed by confusion. The “what ifs and maybes” start to roll around in my mind, and like that father, I am asking Jesus to help me overcome my unbelief. It is then when I hear, “Oh ye of little faith” (Matthew 8:26). Times when I lose my focus on Jesus is when doubt slithers in. These times, like that of the father, are ones where there is something monumental happening in life. Chambers writes, “You are brought face to face with a difficult case and nothing happens externally, and yet you know that emancipation will be given because you are concentrated on Jesus Christ. This is your line of service—to see that there is nothing between Jesus and yourself.”

So I am wondering: what if we took this time of relative quiet that is happening right now to focus on our relationship with Jesus? I know many of us have done that with our immediate families, but have we with Him? What would happen if every believer changed their focus from the temporal – Covid-19, politics, the economy, race and gender, and cancel culture – to redoubling our concentration on spending more time with Jesus? What if we put our collective energy into concentrating on the spiritual? Wouldn’t that have a profound and lasting effect on our worldly concerns?