About a month ago, I had my eyes opened to this passage in Mark, where the man brought his child who was demon possessed to be delivered, but the disciples could not seem to cast the devil out.  The man asked Jesus to help and when asked if he believed, he said:

Mark 9:24  And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

Originally, that sounded like a contradiction, he said he had faith but asked for help with his lack of faith.  My eyes were opened to the truth behind this when was listening to another translation that said something like:

... Lord, I believe but help my doubts.

At this point I realized that you can believe and still have doubts, it is not only one-way, since you can believe but still have some doubts.

Well, today, I was browsing around and came across Andrew Wommack's site where he has a some MP3's on healing and faith.  The one I listed to today was "Why Isn't Everyone Healed" expecting to here about faith and not excuses (and was not let down):

http://www.awmi.net/extra/audio/1036

I already TiVo all of Wommack's shows when they come on, but this was the first time I visited his site.

He opened my eyes to two other points in this area.  This same story I was referring to above also made me wonder why the disciples could not cast the demon out.  I had chalked that up to possibly different strengths of demons due to the passage:

Mark 9:28-29  And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out? And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.

The two points are, what stopped the disciples from casting out the demon and what does prayer and fasting have to do with it?  I contributed semi-correctly, the prayer and fasting as a closer faith walk with God and figured the the disciples just did not believe enough.

It was the words "this kind" that threw me off.  In Matthew it says:

Mat 17:19-21 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? 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. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

It seems clear that it was their unbelief that was the problem.  It was not that they did not believe as they had cast out demons before, but with this one they had too many doubts.  Wommack, points out a possible scenario where the demon might have manifested before the disciples as it did before the Christ and that may have give them enough reason to doubt.

Now, since we no longer look at different demons being stronger or of different types, just different in how they manifest or not, what does the "only through prayer and fasting mean"?  I like Wommack's take on this, that it is to give us a strong faith by casting down our doubts.  If the disciples would have had less doubts their belief would have pulled them through and that doubts only go away with time with God's Word and taking the power of our flesh away.

Mustard Seed Faith

One other point to this that I learned over the last two months is the "grain of mustard seed" remark.  I have head it taught that this means we have a "type of faith" that even though it is small in the beginning, we must grow our faith such as a mustard seed that grows from a small seed to a mighty bush.  There are a few problems with this view however, the first being that in Romans 12:3 it says we have all been given the measure of faith.   One passage I heard to support the view was:

Luk 17:6  And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.

They would say that you had to have that "type" of faith that would grow.  Once fully grown you could move mountains and as in this passage, move the tree by your mighty faith.  That may sound good, but it only works if you take this passage out of context.  In Luke 17:6, the disciples asked Jesus to "increase their faith" which makes 17:6 appear more of slam against them saying if they had even the smallest amount of faith, the tree would obey them.

Another passage is:

1Co 13:2  And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 

Some say that we need "all faith" to be able to move mountains.  Wow, who will ever have "all faith"?  Sounds a lot harder that Jesus said in Mark 11:22-24 and Mat 21:21-22.  But is that "all faith" or is it just "faith and doubt not"?  Yep, the passage is stating that we have faith without doubts.

James also supports having "faith without doubts" in:

Jas 1:6-8  But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

We do not need "more" faith, we just need to remove our doubts!