Built on the Rock Austin W. Duncan

Today we're looking at this verse in the context of Matthew 17:14-21. In this section, we find Jesus and three of His disciples returning from the Mount of Transfiguration, where they find a crowd gathered around the remaining 9 disciples. It's in this crowd that a desperate father is pleading to the disciples on behalf of his demon-afflicted son. As seen as well in Mark 9:14-19, the disciples could not cast out the demon.
The disciples' public failure prompted both an argument from some Jewish scribes, as well as an exasperated response from Jesus about their "faithless and twisted" generation.
"...I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.' And Jesus answered, 'O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.'"Matthew 17:16-17 ESVAfter Jesus heals the boy, we see in the two verses immediately preceding today's verse that the disciples want to understand what went wrong. When they asked Him privately, away from crowds, Jesus responded to them directly, but in this verse, we see that it was relatively kindly. The heart of their failure was having "little faith." This answer from Jesus indicates one of two things:
They did not trust the power previously given to them by Jesus (Matthew 10:8).They did not believe such power could be exercised through them.
So what can we learn from this lesson?
Well, part of what we need to take away from this is the potency of genuine faith. Christ once again mentions the mustard seed as a metaphor for having a living, active faith (Matthew 13:31-32). With even a sliver of faith in His power and authority, nothing is impossible for them. Jesus says that with the faith of a mustard seed, that the disciples will be able to tell a mountain to move and it will do so.
This is an incredibly important lesson for the disciples, as they will eventually come to perform miracles that could easily seem impossible. It's this lesson with Jesus that they understand that the power to do these things will never come from their own ability or goodness or status with God - but rather it will only and always come through what was granted them by Jesus (Matthew 10:8), which is enabled by their faith in Jesus.
As you go about your day, think about this promise from God for those with the faith of even a mustard seed (Matthew 17:20): "nothing will be impossible for you."
How did you respond? Was there lightning-quick and loud unbelief? I'm not talking about the word-of-faith movement, as it can be tempting for this verse to be twisted. But rather, recognize that if we aren't exercising our faith on the promises from the Lord, then we're living beneath our means.
"The faith of Christians is the channel through which God chooses to manifest much of his glory that results in the conversion of unbelievers. If we have little faith, then little glory is seen through us. We must not be content with this."Jon Bloom

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Today's verse begins Psalm 9 - in which David is praising God in a song which actually follows an acrostic pattern: meaning that the psalm is divided into phrases which begin with consecutive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Further, this pattern continues through the next chapter, Psalm 10, which lends to some suggestion that they were intended as a single work. The subject of this Psalm is David promising to praise God for His great works and deeds, including the awesome victory over evil. David goes even further asking God to further rescue him from those who continue to try to kill him, praising God's eternal justice in doing so.
Now that we have some context, let's dive into today's verse, Psalm 9:1. The focus of this Psalm is on Israel's victory over other nations that had previously attacked them (Psalm 9:3-6). The reference that David makes to having a whole-hearted thankfulness foreshadows Jesus' indication of the greatest commandment in all the Law (Matthew 22:34-40), which is originally found in Deuteronomy 6:5:
"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might."Deuteronomy 6:5 ESVDavid shows time and time again throughout his life this practice of crediting the Lord with victory, rather than himself. For example, when battling Goliath, David approached the Philistine giant and said:
"I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel...This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand...For the battle is the LORD'S and he will give you into our hand"1 Samuel 17:45-47And as such, the Lord continues to give victory to His people today. Paul tells us in Romans 8:37:
"We are more than conquerors through him who loved us"Romans 8:37

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In this chapter of Colossians, Paul is giving clear instructions to the Christians of Colossae about living out their faith in Christ. More specifically, verses 1-11 are an encouragement for Christian believers to focus on godly, spiritual things. Those who are saved, thanks to their faith in Christ, and are spiritually free, should not live in the sins which used to be their habit. Paul goes as far as telling believers to "put to death" such behaviors in their own lives. 
Today's verse repeats a theme found in verse 1:
"If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the hand of God."Colossians 3:1This passage is meant for Christians, and we're told here that rather than looking to the earth around us, our minds should be focused on "above" - the things of God. Something we find in the New Testament is this phrase of focusing on "above," in which this is referring to God (John 3:31; 8:23; Ephesians 4:10) or heaven (James 1:17).
So, in light of this context, what would be "things of earth?" Anything associated with ungodly activities. Let's look at an example of what the Bible says about seeking earthly wisdom, specifically James 3:15:
"This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic."James 3:15And in contrast, what the Bible says about wisdom "from above:"
But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.James 3:17You may be wondering at this point, "am I supposed to abandon earthly concern?" And the answer is: no. This isn't what these verses mean. However, it does mean that as believers, we ought to give our time and attention to things that are pleasing and acceptable to God, rather than things that are pleasing to men. If those things happen to coincide, that's great. But our primary concern and attention are on that of pleasing God. As believers, and therefore we are all unified in Christ, we should act as people committed to our Savior.


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Today's verse begins the book of James, and unlike other authors, such as Paul, who often open their letters with gradual introductions, James dives right in without warming up or giving comforting introductory words. Instead, we're right into the foundation of his letter.
So how does his letter start? With a profoundly challenging command.
"Count it joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds"
In essence, we're being told that we should find joy in bad things happening to us. Yet, that's exactly backward from a normal human response to times of hardship. And even though James' readers at the time of his writing this letter most likely were facing poverty and persecution, he uses the words "trials of various kinds" on purpose - because everyone experiences trials. So now I have a question for us to consider:
What does this verse mean? Why would James write such a demand of suffering people?
And as usual with our dives into Scripture, we need to look at the context of this verse - which in this case are verses 3 and 4. If you were to stop with this verse alone, you could very easily develop a deep misunderstanding of the point of this passage and of what James means.
"for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing."- James 1:3-4 ESVWhat does James not say in these three verses? He doesn't tell us to feel happy when trials and hardship comes. And if you were to stop reading at verse 2, you could easily draw that conclusion. Instead, we're told to "count it" joyful - which means to label our trials and hardships as something worth rejoicing over.
The "count" comes from the Greek ἡγέομαι (hēgeomai), which is an accounting term and relates to the organization or collecting things. This is important, as this means that James is telling us that instead of "feeling happy" in times of hardship, we enter those moments as deposits into our life's bank account, not withdrawals. Again, this doesn't mean our immediate response to an illness, job loss, flat tire, or death is that of joy. Instead, James is talking to us about how we categorize these moments when we assess our life as a whole.
I fully understand that this doesn't mean that the command is easy, by any means, it's still hard to do. Instead, what I want you to get from this, is that through this command, James is acknowledging something incredibly important that we don't always admit to ourselves: we can decide how we will describe any moment to ourselves. We can't always control our circumstances. Sure, things in life happen outside of our control. However, we can control how we think about our circumstances. And we're supposed to.
So today, keep this in your mind: when something bad happens, we can immediately say something like, "This is terrible, and today is horrible." Or, "my life is going completely wrong; why is this happening?" Or - we can approach these situations and say, "This is bad - and today's a bad day, but I'm going to get through it. I'm going to get stronger through this and learn from it. And it's the growth and strength that is worth rejoicing over, even though this hurts."


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As Christians, we rely not on ourselves, but instead on Christ in order for us to face the greatest joys and deepest lows of life (Philippians 4:11-13). Today's verse, "I can do all things through [Christ] who strengthens me" is often either misunderstood or misapplied. It isn't an expression of confidence in oneself but is instead far more powerful than a simple statement of us having strength through Christ.
I've talked about this before on here, and I'll say it again - God will never give us more than we can handle. Right?
Wrong. We absolutely will face things that are far bigger than we could ever handle on our own. We will face things so massive that only God can handle them. That's why the phrase, "God will never give us more than we can handle" is so dangerous - because it seems true, and is a nice thought, but is untrue because He's so much more powerful and mighty than that.
God will never give us more than He can handle.
Today's verse isn't about us being mighty, but it's about the strength we have through the Lord. Therefore, as believers, what matters is that we are in Jesus, for Jesus alone can strengthen us to resist temptations that uniquely attend whatever situation we may find ourselves in. John MacArthur puts it like this:
"Because believers are in Christ (Galatians 2:20), he infuses them with His strength to sustain them" (The MacArthur Bible Commentary, p. 1726).We find peace in life (amid joy, or amid suffering and pain) is not based on our own ability to face what life throws at us. Our peace comes from the fact that we belong to Christ, that He never lets us go, and that He is faithful. It's His through His faithfulness that he gives us the grace to live for Him no matter our circumstances, and that's more powerful than any situation we may find ourselves in.
As you go about your day, think about this: if we depend on our character, or our own will-power in the midst of the storms of life, we will never find lasting peace. Instead, we are to seek Christ in everything we do, and it's when we do this that we can serve Him faithfully. Please don't mistake what I'm saying, as this doesn't mean that our concerns will go away, nor should they; but rather, I'm saying that our concerns don't define our lives. They don't bind our minds and emotions with worry and anxiety (1 Peter 5:7; Philippians 4:6-7). Therefore, we're told that we are to find satisfaction in the Lord no matter what life throws at us, good or bad.


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Each of these people had a faith that "looked forward." 
"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation."- Hebrews 11:1-2 ESVSome of these people had a faith and trust in the Lord that was so strong, they kept believing even though they didn't live to see the promises fulfilled, such as Abraham and Sarah. This is because their perspective was eternal, not temporary. 
"For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God."- Hebrews 11:10 ESVAgain, they were "looking forward" to God's ultimate plans. Not for temporary or immediate gratification.
As you read this section, I want you to notice the depth of the perspective being pointed out here. Life on earth is a temporary journey for those who truly trust in God. The concept that we're merely nomads or foreigners here on earth isn't something that we're not accustomed to. Worship songs today even reference this concept:
I'm goin' homeWhere the streets are goldenEvery chain is brokenOh I wanna goOh I wanna goHomeWhere every fear is goneI'm in your open armsWhere I belongHome- Home, Chris TomlinBut I hold on to this hope and the promise that He bringsThat there will be a place with no more sufferingThere will be a day with no more tears, no more pain, and no more fearsThere will be a day when the burdens of this place,Will be no more, we'll see Jesus face to faceBut until that day, we'll hold on to you always- There Will Be a Day, Jeremy CampAs the book of Hebrews indicates, we are "strangers and exiles on the earth." 
It's this kind of faith that can get us through some incredibly difficult times:
We see how Abel trusted God despite personal abuse (Hebrews 11:4)We can obey difficult and confusing commands that God may give, like Noah (Hebrews 11:7)We can trust that God will uphold His word and fulfill His promises, even if it seems like He's waiting too long (which, who are we to say?) like Abraham and Sarah did (Hebrews 11:8-12)
So like these leaders of the Old Testament, I want to encourage you to accept God's promises, even if that means that they are greeted from afar. This is the kind of faith that we need, especially today, and the kind of faith that the writer of Hebrews wants to inspire in those who read this letter.


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