Mar 9:28 | KingComments | STEP | When the Lord has gone into the house, where the crowd cannot follow Him, and He and His disciples are again among themselves, they ask why they could not drive out the evil spirit. It is always good to ask the Lord why we cannot do certain things. Again and again we find in this Gospel that the house is the place where the Lord makes confidential announcements to His disciples, or where they ask Him questions. In the house, the crowd does not listen. In prayer we acknowledge our utter powerlessness and our complete dependence on God. The world has pleasant and good things we may use. Fasting is the conscious temporary renunciation of such things that are not wrong in themselves, so that heart and time are completely devoted to a particular cause for the Lord. Spiritual power disappears completely when life is taken up by earthly things. The kingdom of God displaces the kingdom of satan only through faith, prayer and fasting.

‏ Mark 9:28

The Cause of the Failure

When the Lord has gone into the house, where the crowd cannot follow Him, and He and His disciples are again among themselves, they ask why they could not drive out the evil spirit. It is always good to ask the Lord why we cannot do certain things. Again and again we find in this Gospel that the house is the place where the Lord makes confidential announcements to His disciples, or where they ask Him questions. In the house, the crowd does not listen.

In prayer we acknowledge our utter powerlessness and our complete dependence on God. The world has pleasant and good things we may use. Fasting is the conscious temporary renunciation of such things that are not wrong in themselves, so that heart and time are completely devoted to a particular cause for the Lord. Spiritual power disappears completely when life is taken up by earthly things. The kingdom of God displaces the kingdom of satan only through faith, prayer and fasting.