Musing through Matthew- Hard Mountains To Move (Matthew 17:19-21)

Let us muse again today from Matthew 17: 19 – 21 in the theme of Jesus The King. In our text today Jesus deals with hard mountains to move. Jesus cast the devil from the lunatic boy and afterwards the disciples come in verse 19 to ask why could we not cast him out? Our Lord in verses 20 -21 mentions three possible reasons. First is unbelief. Means unfaithfulness, faithless, or weakness of faith. Jesus tells them if they had just faith the size of a grain of mustard seed you can move mountains and nothing shall be impossible for you. The mustard seed is the smallest of all the seeds we are told that faith cometh by hearing hearing of the Word of God. I assume their unbelief was because of a lack of closeness to the Word of God, Jesus Himself. The next two reasons led to failure to cast the devil out mentioned in verse 21 were prayer and fasting. The word for prayer is a quiet alone place to earnestly cry to the Lord. The word fasting is a personal, private abstinence from food in order to spend time in quiet earnest prayer. O how I fail in these three areas and is surely why often my mountains still loom on the horizon.