First Day of School for Charlotte
Hey all you Charlotte County students- I’ve prayed for you this morning and I hope you have a great day. Don’t forget what you learned this summer, and make efforts today to connect with God and connect Him to others.
Ok, on to our devotions…
Devotions for Monday, August 8, 2011
Mark 9:14-29
And when he came to his disciples, he saw a great multitude about them, and the scribes questioning with them. And straightway all the people, when they beheld him, were greatly amazed, and running to him saluted him. And he asked the scribes, What question ye with them? And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit; And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not. He answereth him, and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him unto me.
And they brought him unto him: and when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare him; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming. And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child. And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us. Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose.
And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out? And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting. (Mark 9:14-29)
Pastor Ben’s Commentary:
Jesus approaches the disciples and sees that they have got a crowd gathered and are being questioned by the scribes (religious leaders at the time.) Apparently there was some debate at the time over what to do with a child that was demon possessed. This was a real problem because this child was being controlled by another spirit that was trying to destroy him and others.
When Jesus got to the disciples he asked what they were debating about. A man in the crowd claimed to be the boys father and told Jesus of their problem. The disciples told Jesus that they had tried to help the boy but couldn’t. They couldn’t understand why they hadn’t been able to help the boy since after following Jesus they had been able to do some pretty amazing things. Jesus equated their inability to help the boy with a lack of faith when He said, “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him unto me.”
Jesus cast out the demon and healed the boy. Everyone was astonished at what happened, including the disciples. They asked Jesus why the couldn’t do what he had done. Jesus said that to do this kind of thing it takes prayer and fasting.
Application:
1. There is a direct connection to your faith and your prayer life. When Jesus heard that they couldn’t help the boy, he mentions their lack of faith as the reason. Later on, when they asked why they couldn’t do it, He mentioned that to be effective their must be prayer and fasting. Prayer and fasting helps to increase your faith, or your trust in God.
- Your faith effects others positively or negatively. These disciples couldn’t do what was needed to help the young man because of their lack of faith. When you have faith in God it helps those around you. When you lack faith in God it hurts those around you. It’s as simple as that.
Application Questions:
Here are some questions you guys can answer today that may help spur on a little discussion.
- How do you think prayer helps your own prayer life?
- How do you think a strong faith in God could help other people?
- How do you think a weak faith in God could hurt those around you?
Take a few minutes today to pray for God to help grow your faith in Him!
Study the Scriptures with Ben Jennings 
1. I believe that prayer is a very important thing and is crucial when it comes to your relationship with God. Pastor Ben always uses a great example about how important prayer really is. His example is: say you have a “friend” that you only used for their stuff. You’re only friends with them because they have a nice house, they take you cool places, they let you use all of their stuff, but you never talk to them. How much of a friendship would that be? Not a very good one! That’s exactly how it is when it comes to our relationship with God! We have to pray and communicate with Him. I’ve noticed when I’ve slacked on praying it makes a huge difference. I feel like I’m missing a huge part! I’ve gotten to the point where I pray every single day couple times a day, and trust me it makes a difference! I think prayer helps my prayer life because once you get in the habit of praying everyday, you notice how important it really is and how you feel when you don’t! God wants you to talk to Him, so do it! 🙂
2. I think having such a strong faith in God can help people in several ways! First of all, having a strong faith in God will help you first and the decisions you make will be Godly ones because you trust God with your life that you’ll be willing to take chances for Him! This leads into taking chances for God by helping other people! Other people will see how much you have faith in God and it will show them what God can really do! I think this is a great testimony to have because not only will you be on the right track and be leading down the road God has for your life, but at the same time you can show others how much God can do, and by putting your trust and faith in Him they can live a Godly life as well! I know I need to display my faith in God more, show others really what all is possible if you give your life to Him and let him be the driver and take you down roads never dreamed of!
3. I think having weak faith can be very dangerous! At camp Sean Sears talked a lot about how we need to have faith in God that we can trust Him with our lives, because with that faith we won’t go down the roads that we want to, we’ll go down the roads God designed for our lives! I think by having weak faith we can miss the chances God gives us to live the life He’s created for us because we think we know what’s best for us. Having weak faith can also make others around us think that God isn’t all He’s cracked up to be which is completely wrong! We need to have strong faith so we can be the person God wants us to be and to help others understand the importance of faith in God as well as having a relationship with him.
This story was amazing and has so many important takes on it! Prayer is so important and without having a prayer life your faith in God won’t be where it should be!
I agree with Melanie prayer is a very important thing to do, and having faith is too as well.so I get why god didn’t want the people to cast the guy out. 🙂
I do agree with Melanie too! but I dont understand the whole story? Can someone help?
Try answering the 3 questions Pastor Ben put up 🙂
ok Thankyou! 🙂
I agree with Melanie! Prayer is very important!! Relationships only work with communication, it’s the same with our relationship with God! Without prayer it’s like not having a relationship with God at all! It’s hard to get in the habit of praying every day, but it definitely makes a difference!!
I think a strong faith helps others a lot because if you have a strong faith in God, you can set a good example and help others to grow too 🙂
Having a weak faith in God can hurt you and others around you by making bad decisions and not praying about it. That is not something good!!
I really love this devos series!! It’s been helping me a lot in my faith in God!! 🙂
1. Prayer helps my own prayer life because by talking to God mulitple times everyday, it makes me realize He is always there! By reading His word and applying it to my life, i feel Him responding to me. When i go through something hard, i pray to God about it. I find it amazing because usually the next thing i read or im taught relates to it! God works in mysterious ways and He really responds to our prayers! 🙂
2. Having a strong faith in God can help other people by being an Godly example! By having faith in something you can’t see definitley makes other people aware of God. It can help other people because then they can have the same faith!
3. Having a weak faith in God can hurt people around me because they would begin to think that God really isn’t real, or that faith is just an idea. Having faith is having trust. If you don’t have faith in God who can you really trust? No one!!! Thats why having faith in God is so important, because it’s the basis of my relationship with God 🙂
1.) I think praying for other people can help your prayer cause you are telling God about the other people and Trying to get them todo something or Be safe and every thing else.
2.) I think haveing a strong faith in god is good for other people cause when you have faith in him alot that means you can go out and tell other people about god and help them to go down the right path.
3.) I think a weak faith in god could really hert all around you cause god wonts us to go around and spred his word but that is not possable if you have a bad relationship with god .
“Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” That is incredible! How often do I need the Lord to help my unbelief?
1. Our prayer life is a huge part of our relationship with God. In case you haven’t noticed I am a big talker. I talk alot. And when I am feeling down about something or something is seriously bothering me, I always feel so much better when I have someone there that i can pour my heart out too, or vent to, or someone who will listen to what i have to say and not tell anyone! And that exactly what we have with God! I think sometimes when we pray we are way to formal, I really like just telling God how my day went, I tell him how i felt about everything and its great to be able to get things off my chest and tell them the the Jesus who died and loves me more than anything! I think that is awesome!
2. I hate doing things by myself, and if I can Avoid it I will not do anything by myself. Its always cool to have someone there with you doing the same thing you are especially when you are doing something that is hard or scary. I think this is were having faith can be helpful to others, We can inspire the people around us to have faith and step out and do awesome things for God, but we need to be the 1st ones to step out so others can too. Don’t wait for someone else to step out< you step out 1st and watch the people around you fallow! then you wont have to go through it on your own.
3. Being weak and scared can be contagious, have you ever been afraid just because the person next to you was scared too? When we have weak faith it can spread around to the Christians around us. WE must be strong God will never let you down. Chose to have great faith like the man in the story. Be the 1st one to take that step out of your comfort zone and watch others fallow! You can do it! You can step out 1st…..so do it!
And Hey everyone that stared school today I hope everything went well and I have been praying for you guys!
I didn’t fully understand today’s devotional. But I’ll try.! My first day was ok. My first year as being a student in all honors classes, it was a change. 😀 thanks for the prayers for us who started school today. 🙂 ok and on to the devotional, ok today I think tht prayer is very important in your walk w/ god. It’s very important to communicate w/ him so u can have a good relationship w/ him. I mean what kind of relationship would u have if u didn’t talk to god? I think not a very good one. I think when u show a good example for god. U can show tht to others and they will c what a good godly like person is like. 🙂 and I think that I’d what I got out of it today! 🙂
What I got out of today’s passage was that the demon child wanted destroy before Jesus came and made the boy whole again but I think the soul that was inside the boy was satin and trying to tempt him to do bad things and maybe try to hurt Jesus. I think before all of us were saved or even new god as our savior we were like that boy who had that demon soul in him because we were full of sin and we are still like that today but we’ve been forgiven and saved by jesus and now we don’t have to spend eternity in hell separated from god. : D