Both…And

Mark 9:24

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Let me ask you a few questions.

Are you a Viking fan or are you a Packer fan?

Do you like summer or do you like the winter, do you like the cold?

Are you a drinking fountain person or do you call it a bubbler?

Life is full of legitimate either/or questions and they belong that way. You can only be one thing or the other.

Sometimes we find ourselves lured into believing something is an either/or when it’s a both. The life of Christian faith is not either a life where we find perfect belief and never any doubts or a life of unbelief where it’s all doubts and nothing else. The desperate father who comes to Jesus, begging Jesus to heal his demon-possessed son, he says it in prayer more perfectly than we could ever come up with. He says it this way:

Lord I believe, help my unbelief. –Mark 9:24

That is the life of a believing Christian. A life that is certain that what God has done for them in Christ is done. And a life at the same time that constantly struggles with doubt and an unbelief.

So when you recognize that your life is a life that is filled both with trust that God is your savior from sin and a life that is full of doubts and despairs, distractions from what God has done for you, then know that you are merely a Christian who is alive, who is living, and who recognizes exactly what all Christians have this side of heaven. That it’s both both faith in Christ and a rescue from our desperations of unbelief.

God rescue you back to himself in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Kyle Madson
Kyle Madson

Pastor Kyle Madson currently serves at Norseland Lutheran Church, and Norwegian Grove Lutheran Church in rural St. Peter, Minnesota.

Articles: 51