Please Help My Unbelief

Mark 9:24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; please help my unbelief!”

Faith and unbelief can coexist as we see from this scripture. However, we cannot stay in this place and expect to grow in the Lord and see Him at work in our lives. We can take a lesson from this dad who was desperate to see his son healed, but lacked the belief Jesus could do it but instead of hiding the problem, the dad admitted it. 

Where are you struggling with unbelief?

Transcript

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Hey, friends, you are listening to Unfiltered with Jesse B. I hope all of you found some time to relax and recharge this past weekend, both physically and spiritually, and now you're just ready for whatever the week may bring. Right now I do want to welcome listeners from Brasilia Federal District in Brazil, who are the latest to join the Unfiltered Podcast with Jesse B. Listening Family. I have to say that I'm humbled that God is using this little podcast to reach people all over the world. And as I have said before, I am not a pastor. This is not a church service, nor is this podcast to take the place of such. I'm just a real woman talking about the unfiltered issues of life and filtering those issues through a biblical lens in the hope of encouraging others to do the same. So with that being said, moving on to the topic at hand is unbelief. Is it possible for a Christian to have faith but still doubt? From a personal perspective, yes. Now without boring you with too many details, let's just say I am in a Job-like season combined with the wandering in the wilderness, whether that's the wandering in the wilderness with the Israelites or wandering in a wilderness being tempted by Satan to do things that I shouldn't be doing. But anyway, that's been going on for about a year now. It could be a spiritual purging of sorts. Some of it could be just plain demonic attacks, and some of it, you know, could be poor choices, poor planning, either on my part or the part of somebody else. Sometimes it's both. But the fact remains that there are times when unbelief, even as a Christian, can come into play. So there is such a thing as three tiers of unbelief. One is ignorance, which is just a simple lack of knowledge and happens when someone has either heard or been taught untruthful statements. And this can be remedied by receiving and understanding correct teaching. So this is why pastors, evangelists, teachers, even podcasters such as myself have a heavy responsibility and will be held accountable for their words. This is why I don't mind being corrected. In fact, I invite it because I don't ever want to take a chance on misinterpreting the Word of God and then spreading that misinterpretation to others. I just don't even want to take that chance. I don't have enough nerve. So the other one is disbelief, which is just holding on to wrong knowledge and false beliefs, often brought on by man-made traditions or incorrect doctrines that contradict the truth as defined by God's Word. Disbelief is harder to overcome than ignorance because it requires the unlearning, or in some cases, the deprogramming of false information. God helps those who help themselves is a popular phrase we have, but in reality this is never mentioned in Scripture. The Bible does encourage hard work and taking care of your responsibilities. However, think about it like this, we couldn't help ourselves out of sin. That's why we have a Savior. We cannot be a Christian if it weren't for Jesus, and we cannot stay a Christian if not for the Holy Spirit. And there are many scriptures supporting that. In fact, John 15, 5, I believe, talks about Christ being the vine, and we are the branches. Apart from him, we can do nothing. The third is natural unbelief, and this is where we rely strictly on what we experience through the five senses, sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing. And I think this is where many of us struggle the most, I know I do. When we are in the midst of the season of wandering in the wilderness, it's hard to see past our current circumstances and see that there may be lessons God is trying to teach us through the struggle. Sometimes, well, who am I kidding? Many times we need to get past ourselves and come into the full, complete reliance on God. And I admit this is where I struggle, and those closest to me know this to be true, and I have been called out on it, not maliciously, but in tough love. Yes, it is possible for a person to have faith and still struggle with unbelief. I do not doubt that God exists. I never have, but the problem is when I trust God for a specific end outcome, it doesn't happen. So who put that specification on God? Me. And what about you? Have you trusted God for a specific outcome and it didn't happen? Who put that specific plan of action on God? You or God? Mark 9 24, immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe. Please help my unbelief. This is probably one of those verses that someone could preach on for a year. What we can learn from this is the father was not dishonest with Jesus. He admitted that his faith was imperfect and he struggled with the doubt and uncertainty. Obviously, the father knew about Jesus, heard of him and the miracles, but the father had doubts as to whether or not his specific concerns and his son would be helped. How many times does this go through our minds during testimonies of God opening doors financially through raises, promotions, healings, marriages or other relationships being restored, or just wanting to praise God because life is wonderful. And here we sit listening, and nothing changes. In other words, God seems to be answering everybody else's prayers around you except yours. I've been there, am there. But I hate saying this as much as I hate hearing it, but faith is a growth process, and that process often comes through hardship. Hardship reveals what we're made of, and that's when we find out what separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls, or better yet, the sheep from the goats. Another thing that I'd rather consume battery acid than to say this, but we need to embrace that process. Embracing the process requires shifting the perspective from the immediate to the outcome. My uncle often says don't waste a good crisis. View it as an opportunity to get rid of the old ways, habits, doubts, and superficial desires and fruitless beliefs. Now it's easier said than done, believe me I know. I've had my ugly cries, my bad attitudes, my cussing fits in front of others and God. I've shaken my fists at God and then crawled back on my hands and knees a lot this past year. But again, it's a process. It's a process of understanding that this season of testing is not meant to destroy, but to strip away the unnecessary the thought processes, the habits, the unrest unrealistic expectations. And also the unrealistic understandings, which are those that do not line up with God's word. In other words, it's getting to know who God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit are to me, not to somebody else, but to me, to have my own personal experience. Now hearing about people's experience with the true living God is encouraging and it can spur one another on, but that will only take a person so far. Sooner or later you will need to have your own experiences, form your own relationship, your own trust, and work out your own faith. Mark ten fifteen, Jesus says, Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it. And when I think of childlike faith, I remember my nephew who is now a teenager going into his freshman year. But during the summers we would go swimming at my aunt and uncle's pool, which was just a little ways down the road. When he was three or four, he loved the idea of getting into the pool, but his feet couldn't touch the bottom. And if his feet couldn't touch the bottom, he would panic. Well, one day he was sitting at the edge of the pool and I swam over to him and asked him to jump in, and what I got for a three or four year old was a firm No, Aunt Jessie. I had my arms outstretched, looked at him in the eye, and I said, Riley, jump. This exchange went on a couple more times until I finally said, You know that I would never talk you into doing anything that will hurt you. And he asked, Do you promise? And I said, Yes. And you also need to promise to trust me. Needless to say, he took a flying leap, and once he got his bearings, you couldn't hardly get him out of that pool. And that's childlike faith, and knowing that I wouldn't ask him to do anything that was harmful. He was going to have to learn to stay afloat in the water, which was easier for him to do, knowing that I would always be there. And it wasn't something that he had to question. In the same way, God wants that childlike faith from us, knowing that he will always be there for us, and it's something that we don't have to question. Hebrews 13 5 reminds us to keep our lives free from the love of money and be content with what we have, because God has said, Never will I leave you, and never will I forsake you. If you're having problems with unbelief, then take a lesson from the dad who cried out to Jesus and on behalf of his son and said, Lord, I believe. Please help my unbelief. By doing so, the dad was honest and admitted that he needed help, and Jesus met that request. So this wraps up for the evening, but I hope you enjoyed this content. And if you know of others who would too, go ahead and share this episode, and please subscribe if you haven't done so already. And I will talk to you tomorrow. Thanks, friends. I love you guys. Good night.