Hello and welcome to the third season of the Excel Stillmore podcast.

I am your host, Chris Emerson, and I'm here to encourage you with tips and strategies

to help you deepen your faith, build stronger relationships, and do the most with your life in Christ.

Thank you for joining. Let's get started.

Welcome back. You know how thankful I am that you've joined today, and I would love to begin

by sharing with you the words of Jesus.

It comes from Matthew Chapter 17. His disciples had gone out to work miracles in his name.

They came upon someone who was demon possessed, but they were unable to cast out that demon.

So Jesus shows up, and he casts out the demon and heals the man. Later, the disciples come to him and say, why weren't we able to do that? So Jesus

tells them, first of all, it is because of the littleness of your faith.

He goes on to say, if you had the faith of a mustard seed, you could cast a mountain.

And then he says this, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.

Now, as you can see, that is our topic today. I have been exploring,

engaging in, and seeking to deepen my relationship to God with prayer, and yes, a certain form of fasting that I want to talk about with you today. But I need you to see the

connection. Jesus is saying, it's not that you don't have the power to do this. It is that you don't

have the faith to do this. If you believed in God's power in your life, you could cast mountains into the ocean.

If even at a mustard seeds size, you trusted in God's nearness and abilities,

he could do unbelievable things through you.

And while it may not be demon casting or mountain tossing,

I am 100% sure the same is still true for you and me today.

The inability to get through something, to get something out of our lives. The lack of power to make it

happen is not about how much power we have. It's about how much faith we have in the power of God.

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