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JANUARY 27
DAY 26: How is genuine faith different from positive-thinking psychology?
Jesus’disappointment with His disciples’inability to cast the demon out of the epileptic boy is
readily felt in the words,“O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you?”(Matt.
17:17).
Later, in privacy the disciples asked Jesus,“Why could we not cast it out?” (v. 19).When Christ
sent the disciples out (Matt.10:6–8),He explicitly commissioned them to do these kinds of miracles.
Less than a year later,they failed where they had once succeeded.Christ’s explanation for their fail-
ure was that their faith was deficient (v. 20).The deficiency did not consist in a lack of confidence;
they were surprised that they could not cast out this demon.The problem probably lay in a failure
to make God—rather than their own gifts—the object of their confidence.
True faith, even “faith as a mustard seed”(v. 20), by Christ’s definition, always involves surrender
to the will of God.What He was teaching here is nothing like positive-thinking psychology.He was say-
ing that both the source and the object of all genuine faith—even the weak,mustard seed variety—
is God. And “with God nothing will be impossible” (Luke 1:37). Here, Christ assumes the qualifying
thought that is explicitly added by 1 John 5:14: what we ask for must be “according to His will.”

January 27 which the Egyptians oppress them. Come
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now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh
that you may bring My people, the children of
Exodus 3:1–4:31
Israel, out of Egypt.”
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I
3 his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring
he led the flock to the back of the desert, and the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
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came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the 12 So He said, “I will certainly be with you.
Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent
of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, you: When you have brought the people out of
and behold, the bush was burning with fire, Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses 13 Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I
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said, “I will now turn aside and see this great come to the children of Israel and say to them,
sight, why the bush does not burn.” ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’
4 So when the LORD saw that he turned aside and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what
to look, God called to him from the midst of shall I say to them?”
the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” 14 And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I
And he said, “Here I am.” AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the
5 Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”
Take your sandals off your feet, for the place 15 Moreover God said to Moses, “Thus you
where you stand is holy ground.” Moreover shall say to the children of Israel: ‘The LORD
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He said, “I am the God of your father—the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the
God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent
God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he me to you. This is My name forever, and this
was afraid to look upon God. is My memorial to all generations.’ Go and
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7 And the LORD said: “I have surely seen the gather the elders of Israel together, and say to
oppression of My people who are in Egypt, them, ‘The LORD God of your fathers, the God
and have heard their cry because of their of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared
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taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I to me, saying, “I have surely visited you and
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have come down to deliver them out of the seen what is done to you in Egypt; and I have
hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up said I will bring you up out of the affliction of
from that land to a good and large land, to a Egypt to the land of the Canaanites and the
land flowing with milk and honey, to the place Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites
of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the and the Hivites and the Jebusites, to a land
Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites flowing with milk and honey.” ’ Then they
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and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the will heed your voice; and you shall come, you
cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt;
and I have also seen the oppression with and you shall say to him, ‘The LORD God of the
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