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Day 46 Matthew 17:14 Matthew 17:14 And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, 15 Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatic, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falls into the fire, and oft into the water. 16 And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. 17 Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me. 18 And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. 19 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? 20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. 21 Howbeit this kind goes not out but by prayer and fasting. There are times in our lives when we think we’re invincible, we can do anything. We’ve been told there’s nothing we can’t accomplish if we put out mind to it, and then we run into the one thing that won’t turn out, no matter how hard we try. Something is missing in the equation, and we can’t lay our finger on it to puzzle it out. Jesus, Peter, James, and John returned from the mountaintop experience where Jesus had shown them his glory, to the rest of his disciples, to find a man who had come to his disciples to cure his son of lunacy, but they couldn’t do anything for his son. What was the missing ingredient? Why couldn’t the disciples cure the man of his lunacy? When Jesus cast the demon out of the boy, and the disciples were alone with Jesus, they asked him why they couldn’t heal the boy. Jesus had already sent them out to heal the sick and cast out devils, yet they couldn’t do this simple act of healing. They couldn’t cure the boy of his lunacy. Jesus told them there was one more ingredient they needed to apply to their faith in healing people of every disease and cast out demons – prayer and fasting. Only when they added that one ingredient to their work for the kingdom of God, would they be able to do all they were required to do. Then they would be able to move mountains for the kingdom of God. As Christians, you’ve heard the story of the mustard seed, especially if you’ve been in Sunday school since you were a child and know it doesn’t take much faith to move a mountain, but you need to add prayer and fasting to faith in order to do anything for the kingdom of God. You don’t need a lot of faith, just a little is all you need. What happens when you apply prayer and fasting to your mustard seed faith? It grows. Every time you apply prayer and fasting to anything that looks impossible, your faith grows, just like the mustard seed, which when planted in the garden grows to a tall tree giving shade to everything in the garden. You can only increase your faith through prayer and fasting. When you apply prayer and fasting to your problem, God will reveal the answer to you, and you will then be able to move your mountain. Let’s pray: Father, help me apply prayer and fasting to the mountain in my life. Increase my faith to that of a mustard seed, so I can remove the mountain. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen. Copyright © 4 June 2018 by Valerie Routhieaux Image courtesy of Pixabay