Tag: mark 3

Whoever Does The Will of God (Mark 3:31-35 Devotion)

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Then His brothers and His mother came, and standing outside they sent to Him, calling Him. 32 And a multitude was sitting around Him; and they said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are outside seeking You.” 33 But He answered them, saying, “Who is My mother, or My brothers?” 34 And He looked around in a circle at those who sat about Him, and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! 35 “For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother.”

– Mark 3:31-35 (NKJV)

There are two groups of people seeking Jesus. The first group is his actual mother and brothers who are outside the house who are calling for him. They probably want to tell/ advise him on what to do. The second group is the crowd at his feet that has been listening to him. Jesus looks at the crowd and says they are his mother and brothers. The distinction that he makes between the two groups is simple… “Whoever does the will of God.”

Jesus doesn’t show any favoritism for his family here. Whatever they want, if it is not the will of God, they can wait. He will not be manipulated. When their will and God’s will collide, it’s God’s will that matters. This is an important thing to grasp.

Throughout church history people have often pulled in their pagan prechristian beliefs into their practice either knowingly or unknowingly. Before the gospel made such an impact in Ephesus, many of the people practiced “magic.” Magic in that day consisted of getting beings or entities to do your bidding for you and you would often have to manipulate them into action. So you might call on an entity that had favor with whatever entity you wanted to act for you so you would use the name of one to get the other to do what you wanted. Unfortunately through a part of history and in some places today people try and “manipulate” Jesus to bend to their will and they will pray to someone like Mary (not that you can or should pray to dead people, you shouldn’t.) and ask her to ask Jesus to do something. The logic is pretty convincing for some people… Jesus has to do what his mom says, right? Wrong. These verses are helpful to know that Jesus in his humanity can’t and won’t be manipulated by his relatives, the saints or anyone. We should all seek God’s will, not the other way around.

This is what we’ve been praying every day, “Guide us in your will.” That’s a Christian prayer! We’re asking God to show us what He wants us to do! Certainly we’ve shared in prayer about what we want, need and feel, but at the end of it all we’re really asking, “Lord show us your will.”

Father, We love you and want to grow in knowledge of you and your word. What a grace it is to know that we cannot manipulate you to our will. We often do not even know the full situation. We can trust you and your promises because they come from you. Please guide us in your will and direction for us. In Jesus Name, Amen.

The Most Demonic Thing You Can Do Is Reject Jesus (Mark 3:20-30 Devotion)

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Then the multitude came together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. 21 But when His own people heard [about this], they went out to lay hold of Him, for they said, “He is out of His mind.” 22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebub,” and, “By the ruler of the demons He casts out demons.” 23 So He called them to [Himself] and said to them in parables: “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 “If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 “And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26 “And if Satan has risen up against himself, and is divided, he cannot stand, but has an end. 27 “No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. And then he will plunder his house. 28 “Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; 29 “but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation”– 30 because they said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

– Mark 3:20-30 (NKJV)

What is the unpardonable sin? Rejecting Jesus and declaring God in the flesh to be “possessed by a demon.” That’s the reading of verse 30. Jesus said what he said, because they attributed the work of God to the Devil. If you are looking for the Messiah to come and save the world and when he shows up you asses what he is doing and call him a demon… It’s clear you have opted out of any salvation he was offering. You can’t find forgiveness when you won’t humble yourself enough to even confess that you need it.

It’s not a little sin to call the work of God evil. There will be people who come into the kingdom of God with a storied history of all sorts of wicked sins that are forgiven by God (see 1 Cor. 6:9-11). But some of the people who miss the kingdom will have lived otherwise very moral lives. It’s not our good deeds that get us into the kingdom of God, it’s the king. It’s not our bad deeds that ultimately keep us out. It’s rejecting the king (see John 3:18). You can find forgiveness for every sin you have ever committed, but if you reject Jesus, there is no forgiveness for that.

The picture I think we see here is that these men were focused on the idols they had set up in their hearts. Their hearts had gotten so hard and they had given themselves over so much to the enemy that when Jesus was in their midst they didn’t recognize him or even worse they did, but rejected him! We should pray that our hearts are always sensitive to the Lord.

Father, We love you and want to grow in knowledge of you and your word. We are shocked at what these men did. We find it concerning that people can be so seemingly “righteous” and be so wicked at the same time. Guard our hearts from pride, give us grace to repent of our sins, let us walk in all humility and patience. Please guide us in your will and direction for us. In Jesus Name, Amen.

Your Kingdom Come (Mark 3:7-12 Devotion)

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[Mar 3:7-12 NKJV] 7 But Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the sea. And a great multitude from Galilee followed Him, and from Judea 8 and Jerusalem and Idumea and beyond the Jordan; and those from Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they heard how many things He was doing, came to Him. 9 So He told His disciples that a small boat should be kept ready for Him because of the multitude, lest they should crush Him. 10 For He healed many, so that as many as had afflictions pressed about Him to touch Him. 11 And the unclean spirits, whenever they saw Him, fell down before Him and cried out, saying, “You are the Son of God.” 12 But He sternly warned them that they should not make Him known.

– Mark 3:7-12 (NKJV)

I love the picture that I chose for the graphic for this series. It’s a picture of the Grand Tetons that we snapped as we were driving through that part of Wyoming. It was an overcast day and the mountains were in the shadows of the clouds. Yet, the picture shows slivers of light piercing through and shinning on the mountains below. It was a hint of the glorious sunlight that was shinning above the clouds. It was a hit that the shadows wouldn’t stay on the mountain and there was a “brighter” day ahead.

What we see today in today’s passage is the kingdom of God breaking through the curse that has come on creation. Jesus is undoing the things that have gone wrong. He is healing the broken and casting out demons. People are gathering close to him because they sense and see in him something that has been missing from the world for a long time.

Today, when we see these rays of the kingdom shine down on us it should cause our hearts to long for a full manifestation of Jesus kingdom. We should long for when there will be no more sickness, death, or sorrow. We should long for the day when every evil entity will be completely banished. We should long for a day when God will again fully dwell with people and no one will ever be far from the presence of God again. What we saw in this moment was that the world was not made to live in the shadow of the curse forever, but would one day be banished.

This should provoke our hearts to praise and good deeds. As we pray for the “Kingdom to come,” we should be living as those who are suited to live there. We should ask the Lord to examine our lives and make us fit for the kingdom that is coming.

Father, We love you and want to grow in knowledge of you and your word. We are grateful for the rule and the reign of Christ over our lives and we long for the day when this earth will no longer be under that curse of sin, but be fully set free. Please guide us in your will and direction for us. In Jesus Name, Amen.

Mark 3: its your hard heart stupid

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We pick up in chapter 3 with the religious leaders of the day staring at Jesus all through jewish church (synagogue) wondering if He’s going to help the guy with the gimpy hand. They really don’t care about the guys gimpy hand, they just want to see if Jesus will break one of their rules (don’t work on the Sabbath, because I’m pretty sure no one thought of the “don’t heal on the Sabbath” rule till Jesus came along so they tried to slide it under, “don’t work” which was really just a rule to help them “rest” and worship God.)

When did your relationship become all about rules anyway? I’m not saying ditch the rules, but have we gone out of our way to make things sin that aren’t really sin at all? Then do we get mad when other people cross our imaginary boundaries built on preference? Jesus was mad and grieved because the religious guys had perverted the grace and provision of God to keep their brothers from God.