After the disciples had tried and failed to cast out an impure spirit, they went to Jesus in confusion, asking, \u201cWhy couldn\u2019t we drive it out?\u201d (Mark 9:28). Jesus replied that it was only through prayer\u2014only through concentration and more concentration on him, only through a personal relationship with him\u2014that such a spirit could be driven out. The disciples had tried to do God\u2019s work by drawing on their own ideas rather than by concentrating on God\u2019s power.<\/p>\n
If you approach things as the disciples did, you will remain as powerless as they were. You may be eager to work for God, but if you work for him without knowing him, you\u2019ll end up working against him. Sometimes you are faced with a difficult situation and you pray about it, yet nothing happens\u2014not on the outside. But if you are concentrating on Jesus, if you have a personal relationship with him, you know that emancipation will be given. The focus of your service must be to make sure that there is nothing between Jesus and yourself. If there is, you can only overcome it by facing it and going straight through it into his presence, not by ignoring it in irritation. Face the issue with the Lord, and eventually that very thing, along with everything that\u2019s happened in connection with it, will glorify him.<\/p>\n
The one purpose for which we are in this world is concentration on God. Get the noisy cries of religion out of your ears, the cries that say, \u201cDo this and don\u2019t do that.\u201d Never! Jesus says, \u201cBe<\/em> this and that, and I will melakukan<\/em> through you.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After the disciples had tried and failed to cast out an impure spirit, they went to Jesus in confusion, asking, \u201cWhy couldn\u2019t we drive it out?\u201d (Mark 9:28). Jesus replied that it …<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":2290,"template":"","collection":[],"class_list":["post-2708","modern-classic","type-modern-classic","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/modern-classic\/2708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/modern-classic"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/modern-classic"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/modern-classic\/2708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=2708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}