Day Twelve: What is possible?

Scripture: Mark 9:14-29

Principle: Faith opens a world of possibilities.

If faith makes everything possible then the opposite must also be true. Lack of faith makes the possible, impossible. That’s what happens in this story.

After some time alone with Peter, James and John, Jesus returns to crowds. He finds his disciples arguing with the religious leaders. It turns out they were arguing because of a boy who was demon possessed and his disciples were not able to heal him. He rebukes them for their lack of faith and heals the boy. The disciples’ lack of faith made the possible, impossible. Later the disciples asked why they couldn’t heal the boy. Jesus’ answer, “…This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” (Mark 9:29, ESV) I don’t know what the disciples were doing to try and heal this boy, but whatever it was, it wasn’t prayer. Faith and prayer go hand in hand. No doubt their lack of faith led to their lack of prayer which limited what was possible.

Faith opens up a world of possibilities and prayer is the door. E. M. Bounds says this about the possibilities of prayer:

How vast are the possibilities of prayer! How wide is its reach! What great things are
accomplished by this divinely appointed means of grace! It lays its hand on Almighty
God and moves Him to do what He would not otherwise do if prayer was not offered.
It brings things to pass which would never otherwise occur. The story of prayer is the
story of great achievements. Prayer is a wonderful power placed by Almighty God in
the hands of His saints, which may be used to accomplish great purposes and to
achieve unusual results. Prayer reaches to everything, takes in all things great and
small which are promised by God to the children of men. The only limits to prayer
are the promises of God and His ability to fulfill those promises.25


Application: Today contemplate what might be possible through prayer and ask God to grow your faith.

25  Edward M. Bounds, The Possibilities of Prayer (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2004), 15.