All Things Are Possible to Him Who Believes in Mark 9:23

While the Gospel of Mark's author is anonymous, early church traditions associate the book with John Mark, "the Evangelist".

• In Mark 9, he writes about an emotionally charged scene where a father is asking Jesus to help his son who is possessed by an evil spirit.

Jesus response is that ANYTHING is possible if a person believes!

• The very next response contains the father saying that he DOES believe, but asks that Jesus would help him overcome his unbelief.

This pair of verses extends a rich invitation to dive deep in to the question:

• What is belief? Why is it so important to Jesus? What can we do when we both believe and doubt at the same time?

THE ANSWER CAN BE FOUND IN JESUS' ANSWER.

• He confronts our "if" with His "ANYTHING". His ability isn't in our question, our belief is.

  • Do we trust Him?

  • Are we confident in Him?

But that's not to say our emotions dictate our faith.

• Like the boy's father, we can confess that we're experiencing both belief and doubt at the same time, trusting God is able to do "anything" with the faith we do have.

Believing in the one who created us stabilizes us. Jesus prizes our belief because without it, we can't know Him; it's the first necessary thing. It's what allows everything else to follow, and anything at all to become possible.