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(Today’s devotional is taken directly from my personal devotional journal from Thursday of this week, expanded for the sake of this Chaplain’s Corner Devotional. I was so struck by my reading and study that I shared these thoughts with my Thursday Bible classes.)

I ask the question: Is it possible for the Kingdom of God to be distorted or deformed? Does the way I live out my faith have any impact on the fidelity of God’s Kingdom?

Before I get to our reading, let me set the scene found in the first part of Matthew 17. Jesus has gone up on a mountain with three of his disciples: Peter, James, and John. On this mountain, Jesus’ shroud of humanity falls away and He is seen in all of His heavenly glory! Shining with a brilliant white light, his hair and his clothes are bright white. From this ‘blinding, light-of-the-sun’ transformation, two other men are seen talking to Him, Moses and Elijah.” Peter, The Impetuous, interrupts their conversation to let them know that he has figured out the significance of Christ. Yet, while he is still speaking, God interrupts him and tells him to be quiet and listen to His Son. Well, that’s how I read it, at least. So, I always thought that this was happening at night. The contrast of darkness and Jesus’ brilliant light would seem to be made all the greater. Yet, this seems to be happening in daytime.

While they are on the mountain, the other disciples are at the foot of the mountain and they are occupying their time working all sorts of miracles. Towards the end of the day, just about the time that Jesus, Peter, James, and John are coming down off the mountain, quite a crowd has gathered. Everyone is excited to see that it isn’t just Jesus that can work mighty miracles, but His disciples, now, too!

Now that all eyes are on them, a demon possessed boy is brought to them by his father. This is it. It’s the last inning, bases are loaded. The score is The Disciples 75 and Disease 0. The pitch is a curve ball over home plate. They swing and miss. But, in this game, there are no three strikes and you’re out. It’s more like, one strike, you’re out, and all the points you had, are taken away and given to the opposing team.

Read below to see how this story plays out.

Matthew 17: 

14 When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. 15 “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16 I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”

17 “You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” 18 Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.

19 Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”

20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (Biblegateway.com. NIV)

I highlighted ‘unbelieving’ and ‘perverse’ in verse 17 because I want to study those words. Jesus is speaking to His disciples.

At the end of their momentous day of working miracles something happens. Maybe they start to get arrogant and think that somehow the miracles have something to do with them, maybe it is their great faith or their power or their…who knows. We all have experienced something like that when all is going in our direction. We forget that it is God’s power, His intelligence and wisdom, not our own.

Or, perhaps they, like Peter in the Storm, seeing the storm, take their eyes off of Jesus. Maybe, as the day was coming to a close, they were hungry and tired, getting hangry, maybe! and when they saw this demon possessed child, they saw here something different than what they had been confronting all day and they lost faith. They doubted themselves.

Hunger and weariness can definitely fatigue even our faith. And in this moment of vulnerability; when all eyes are on them; when they are failing where they had been winning, Jesus seems to chide them, aggressively, in front of the very people they are embarrassed in front of! Why does He do this?

Let us now take a deeper look at his words, ‘unbelieving,’ and ‘perverse.’

Here is verse 17 in the original Greek:

17 ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν· Ὦ γενεὰ ἄπιστος καὶ διεστραμμένη, ἕως πότε μεθʼ ὑμῶν ἔσομαι; ἕως πότε ἀνέξομαι ὑμῶν; φέρετέ μοι αὐτὸν ὧδε. (Nestle Aland Greek New Testament. version 28.)

ἄπιστος: Pistos is a verb that means, “to believe.” Adding the “a” at the beginning turns it into the ‘anti’ of whatever the verb is. So, it is ‘anti-believing,’ or ‘unbelieving.’

διεστραμμένη: (diestramenae)

 ① to cause to be distorted, deform

② to cause to depart from an accepted standard of oral or spiritual values,

 ③ to cause to be uncertain about a belief or to believe something different, mislead

Notice, that the verb διεστραμμένη is a causative verb. Our unbelief causes distortion, it causes others to depart from spiritual values, it causes others to believe something different. The way we live out our faith either causes a right and correct understanding of who God is and leads people to Him, or if we wield faith poorly, it causes others’ understanding of God to be distorted and give the reason to not believe.

My Summary Thoughts:

When we take the name of Christ, but do not truly believe that we have been baptized by the Spirit; when we don’t truly believe that He has granted us the power to do more mighty things than even He did when He was on this earth (in the name of other-centered Love!!); when we live our lives with spiritual impotence, we cause others to disbelieve; we lead others astray; we cause other people’s faith to be misshapen and distorted; we become part of the problem instead of part of the solution.

This is a sobering thought. Our lack of faith, or lack of putting our faith into proper practice, will cause others to have a mistaken idea about who God is and what His Kingdom is like

Do we want our neighbors to truly know God? The occasional invitation to come to our church for a special program really isn’t the way they will come to know God through us. The way we live as neighbors will do more to show them Jesus! Do we pray for our neighbors regularly? Do we get to know them? Do we include them in our budget and get them the shoes they told us they need for their child? Do we come back from the grocery store with a bag for them? Do we love and care for them as we love and care for ourselves and our own family? Jesus’ Good News should infuse itself into every corner of our lives and every fiber of our being!

What about in our own homes? The way we, parents, grandparents, guardians, aunts, uncles…the way we live out Jesus’ Good News in our homes and to our family has more impact on their desire for Him and heavenly things than any amount of church and school activities ever will! Don’t get me wrong. I love Pathfinders and Adventurers, Sabbath School and Church, Christian Education…and all the trimmings that go with all of those! Love. Love. Love!! But, none of those can, will, or should ever take the place of consistently living out Jesus’ Good News in our own homes!

What happens when we “take the name of the LORD thy God in vain?” Jesus says, here in Matthew, that we cause others to have a misshapen, distorted view of God and of His Kingdom. When we don’t put into practice that which we say we believe, other’s perception of God is twisted and they wind up saying, I imagine the crowd saying, “That’s what I thought! They are bunch of cheap tricksters, frauds, and charlatans!!” And God gets a black eye where we are supposed to be restoring a proper knowledge of Him and letting the light of His character spread through the darkened world through us! Then our neighbors and our children reject Him. That’s not what we want!! Not at all!

So, how do we have a consistent, powerful, and accurate presentation of God’s character in our homes and communities?

What is Jesus’ answer? How do we deepen our faith so we don’t become a stumbling block? “Some only come out by fasting and prayer.” Fasting and Prayer. Go deeper in your spiritual walk. Let go of more of this world and fill the void with the things of heaven!

Wherever we are at in God’s beautiful world, I invite you to join me in rededicating our lives to living more and more for God, and less and less for self. I want my witness to be powerful and consistent, both in my community and in my home.

I invite you to pray this prayer with me:

“Dear heavenly Father, King of the Universe: kind, gracious and merciful!

Thank you for the gift of life I receive each morning! And thank you for the better gift of Life, you provide for me fresh whenever I need it, because of the Cross of Christ! This morning, I find myself fearfully faithless. I don’t mean to do harm to your good-name! I love You and I want others to love You, too! Please send your Spirit to fill me with Your power so that I can know you and be joined to you more fully and to accurately and consistently and powerfully live out the Good News that You are Love! in my community and in my own home. Without You, I can do nothing. But, with You, I can do everything…anything! Lord, I confess to you, I still love too much of this world; too much of this world is yet ingrained upon me. Please give me a fresh revelation of your character, today and everyday, so that this world will dim in my view and estimation.

In Jesus wonderful and sweet name!! — Amen.”