• June 16,2021

Mark 10:21-22, “And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.“

This reminds me of what I read earlier about the sowing the seeds. the rich young ruler, as is his title in scripture, comes to Jesus and he asks, What must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus answers with the Ten Commandments asking for the young ruler for honesty and receives pride instead. Jesus then tells him to rid himself of all that he had and because he loved his possessions he went away.

Thats such a scary idea, the idea that I could come to love my possessions so much that I would lose my soul over it. People make that decision all the time though. Where is my heart at? If God were to call me somewhere would I listen just as Abraham did when God called him away from his family and off into the wilderness? Would I be like Jonah and run from my responsibilities? I want to say that I would listen like Abraham but even he failed to fully do what God told him. I want to believe that God would help me in my cowardice and unbelief. In fact the next verse I read that helped with this thought pattern is very pertinent to what is said here.

Mark 11:24-25 says, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

Continuing on about prayer from the pryer post, again God is showing me the power of prayer. Jesus said with his own mouth that whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. Now I don’t want to be misunderstood, if this verse is taken out of context it can be thought that God works like a wish granter. That’s not the case, God does not serve to grant us our pleasures, he serves to make us holier and I believe that if we pray for something that is in Gods will for us to do than he will grant whatever it is we ask. Going with what I was saying before, that I believe that God would help me in my cowardice and unbelief, I would figure that the lord WOULD help me in that because my desire would be for his will be done though it would scare me.

• June 17, 2021

Mark 12-14

Mark 12:30-31 says, “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

So I really wanted to focus on the verses that gave an insight on what God desires and this first one was pretty self evident. This is the greatest command. I heard from a pastor one time that if we breakdown the Ten Commandments it comes down to two things. Our relationship with God and our relationship with man and these two verses sum up basically everything having to do with both. If we look at first corinthians we get a good description about what love is, what it does. Love is patient, kind, it does not envy, boast, seek only for himself and so on. I find that love incapsulates all that God desires our relations with people to be. But it’s so hard in practice. In theory it seems easy, in practice it is much more complicated. God does not delight in evil and neither should we. if what someone does is evil in Gods eyes then we should not partake of it. God is also long-suffering and kind so just because we don’t partake anything that is evil does not mean we end our being long-suffering or kind. What I’m getting at is that love is not about being right in man’s eyes it’s about being right in God’s eyes. There are many different ways of going about loving people. Our example is Jesus himself. The pharisees at one point of the scriptures see Jesus eating with sinners and ask him why he would do that. and he told them figuratively speaking, that God did not come to heal the healthy but to heal the sick.

• June 24th, 2021

Mark 15-16 and Acts 1-2

Mark 15:15 says, “So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.”I’ve heard a lot of messages lately about being people pleasers. That is something I know I struggle with because I am afraid to deal with people. I’m not sure if it’s my timidity or if its because I just don’t like to argue but I know its to my detriment if I don’t practice being open and share with people honestly and with truth.

There are hundreds of forms of people pleasing. Social media, has become a huge outlet of people pleasing. People have made it their business to cater to those around them by saying and doing whatever is the latest thing. The thing with people pleasing is that people are never satisfied. They always want more, want something better, want something new. You know who IS pleased by you? Jesus. I always need to remind myself of this fact. the Bible says, the lord takes pleasure in those who fear him( Godly reverence/ not actual fear by the way), in those who hope in his steadfast love in psalm 147: 11.

Pulling from what I wrote about earlier I think it is important to pray about this. It’s so easy to try to satisfy people when it goes against the word of God but the hard part is standing up for what you believe in even if it isn’t the most popular thing to say or do. The Lord promises us to hear our prayer and help us in our unbelief or fear. I want to make it a practice to pray for this everyday because I want to share the word with the people around me but I always end up being overcome with fear. pray for me about this too.