Business as Usual is Not Enough!

In our meditation yesterday (Scroll down further to read), while Jesus was away from them, nine of the disciples could not cast out an evil spirit from a boy. The Lord had been training the disciples for three years to heal the sick and cast out demons (Luke 9:1-2). He had also sent out 72 others to do the same thing (Luke 10:1, 9, 17). Now, just before He departed for Jerusalem, and with it His departure from this Earth, the 9 disciples were incapable of casting out a demon in front of Him. Doesn't it seem as if Jesus got upset and frustrated at the disciples? He said that they were, “unbelieving and perverse” [or distorted] (Luke 9:41). This is what the Fall has done to the human race, making us an unbelieving people, having a distorted view of God and His ability to use us in ministry toward those held in bondage to sin and evil in this world. A person’s frustration is often visual evidence showing the things about which a person cares. Jesus cared that the disciples, as His representatives, were able to minister in the power of God and be able to deliver people from spiritual bondage. Each of us is to learn to exercise the ministry of Jesus on the earth in the name of Christ. The nine disciples took the time to pray for the boy, but they moved from trusting the power and authority of Christ to believe that it was faith in the process. The presence of Christ in us is the key, not the method or system on which we tend to lean.

What happened to the disciple’s faith? They had ministered in this way before, so why could they not cast the spirit out of the boy? It is essential to Christ that His church understands that we are a supernatural people invested with divine power and authority to do His work in the world.

We live in a day where the Church in the West relies on our intellect more than the power of God. But the time has far gone for business as usual. We cannot rest on what we can do in our strength to get the gospel out to a lost world. We need the whole church to preach the whole gospel to the whole world! Do you know that the population of the world only passed one billion in the year 1830? Then it took 130 years before it got to two billion people. The world population is now over seven billion people (2018) and growing at the rate of one billion every ten years. More than half the amount of people who have ever lived are now alive. Think about that! Only as we step out in the power of our God, exercising His authority, will the church ever get into multiplication mode where we see whole cities come to Christ? Is that not possible? If it was possible in the Book of Acts why would it not be possible today? (Acts 9:35). 

Jesus was frustrated at the disciples because He wanted them to work under the power of the Holy Spirit, and not rely only on their abilities. Human intelligence and soul energy is not going to change the world. The power of God was, and is, the need of the hour! God’s work needs God’s power. When they asked why they couldn’t cast out the spirit from the boy, He told them it was because of their lack of faith. But then he explained something interesting, which some translations take out from the original Greek. “But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:21). Some Greek manuscripts do not include this passage, so the New International Version translators decided to put the passage down at the bottom of the page. The King James Version includes it. What the Lord is saying is that a life characterized by prayer and fasting will always be ready to handle situations that are resistant to a life marked by a lack of prayer.

I am thankful for this nugget of truth, for it explains that there are some situations we encounter, which can only be resolved by a higher level of the presence and power of God upon us, which can come about only through a life of regular prayer and fasting. One needs time to fast and pray. It is often not possible to ask a person to come back at a later time so that we could fast and pray. If only the nine had known beforehand that they would encounter a spirit that would resist their commands to come out of the boy, they would have prepared themselves for the encounter. Jesus is advocating a lifestyle of prayer and fasting so that we would always be ready for any situation. I don't believe the words, "this kind," refers only to a strong evil spirit, I think it relates to stubborn conditions that each of us goes through which a typical habit of prayer has not resolved. In these instances, there can be a spiritual stronghold which needs to be broken by times of prayer and fasting. Keith Thomas

This meditation is taken from an in-depth study on Spiritual Warfare, click here to read it.