Posts with the tag “belief”

What happens when the faith we claim to have runs dry in the moment we need it most? In Mark 9, we find the disciples standing before a desperate father and a suffering boy, armed with authority they had used before, yet suddenly powerless. The scene is jarring, and it raises a question that cuts right to the heart of our own spiritual lives: are we relying on Christ, or are we running on borrowed confidence from yesterday's encounters with him? The central lesson here is both sobering and liberating. Unbelief is not just a passive absence of faith. It is an active force that limits what God does in and through us. Jesus calls out an entire generation, crowds, religious scholars, and his own disciples, not to shame them, but to awaken them to the one standing right in front of them. The Bernie Madoff story that opens this message is a striking parallel. Just as financial unbelief in credible warnings led to catastrophic loss, our spiritual unbelief in a credible and proven God leads to mission failure. The remedy is not trying harder. It is looking more clearly at who Christ actually is and casting our full weight upon him.  Read More

We often mark beginnings with celebrations—new years, birthdays, anniversaries—but Mark's Gospel points us to one of the most significant beginnings in all of history: the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This isn't just another historical marker; it's the culmination of every promise God made throughout the Old Testament. What makes this beginning so revolutionary is where it takes place: not in palaces or temples, but in the wilderness—the very place of testing, scarcity, and spiritual exile where we all find ourselves. Jesus meets us exactly where Adam and Eve failed, where Israel stumbled, where every human being faces temptation and hardship. The beauty of this gospel is that it doesn't wait for us to clean ourselves up or create the perfect circumstances. Instead, Jesus enters our wilderness, faces what we face, and emerges victorious. This message challenges us to examine what we're really placing our hope in—is it the next achievement, relationship, or circumstance we think will finally bring peace? Or have we truly changed our minds about what saves us? The call to repent and believe isn't a one-time decision but an ongoing posture of turning from false hopes and leaning fully into Christ. As we navigate our own wilderness moments this year, we're invited to trust that the same Jesus who conquered temptation, death, and Satan offers us not just survival, but victory.  Read More