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Monthly Archives: June 2018

Loving God

As Jesus was nearing the time of the cross, He was questioned by various religious leaders. Some with good motives and others who were trying to trap Him in what He said. There was one who seemed to want a real answer.

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
Mark 12:28

Jesus was always willing to answer those who asked a serious question.

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’”
Mark 12:29-30

The Lord gives this man the most important command of the Law. It turns out that Jesus didn’t give him a rule to follow, such as sacrificing, tithing, or reading Scripture. Instead, it was a command to know who God is and then knowing how to respond to Him correctly.

This is still a valid command for us today. As Christians, we need to understand who it is that we serve and what it takes to show our love for Him.

Love God with all of your heart. Your heart is the garden of your life. It’s where you put things that you want to grow.

It’s the good soil that you should be planting the Word into. Loving God with all your heart means that you will only plant things that will please God.

If I were a servant tending to a garden for my master, this would be simple to understand. If my master hated green beans, then there would never be any green beans in my garden. We should only be planting the things that please God in our hearts.

Love God with all of your soul. That’s the seat of your decision making. We show our love for God each day by the decisions we make. Do we take God’s will into account when we decide what direction our lives will take?

Love God with all of your mind. Your mind is the storehouse of your life. Whether you remember it or not, everything that you see and hear is stored forever in your mind. That’s why it’s so important to be careful gatekeepers of what we watch and listen to.

When the Lord walks through your storehouse, what does He see? Are there things that are offensive to Him? If so, then you can clean it up through repentance and faith in the cleansing power of the blood of Christ.

Love God with all of your strength. I think that this is the one command that seals all of the others. Without it, our love falls short.

That’s because your strength speaks of actually doing something. You can’t say that you love without putting it into action.

I’ve heard people say, “I love God in my heart even though you don’t see it in my actions.” Actually, that’s not real love. Whether you’re talking about a human relationship or walking with God, love has to be shown by what we do.

It takes all of these together to make a complete love package. Our heart, soul, mind, and strength must be working in unison. It’s through these that we fulfill our greatest calling.

Question: Why is this the most important command of Scripture?

The Biggest Mistake

04 Jun

We’re continuing to look at the Gospel of Mark. At this point, the Pharisees are trying to trip up Jesus in His words. They’re not doing very well at it.

In Mark chapter 12, verses 18 through 27, a group of Sadducees come to question the Lord. You may want to read this section of Scripture before continuing in this post.

As a religious sect of Israel, the Sadducees do not believe in the resurrection of the dead. They also don’t believe in angels, demons, or miracles.

This group came to Jesus with an insane question about seven brothers who all had the same wife. This happened because each brother died and the wife was passed down to the next oldest brother.

They asked Jesus who the wife would be married to in the resurrection. They thought that this proved the resurrection was simply a foolish idea.

The Lord has a way of getting right to the heart of the matter.

Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising — have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!”
Mark 12:24-27

This group of Sadducees had found a way to live for themselves and still sleep soundly at night. They decided that there was no resurrection and, therefore, no judgment, heaven or hell. They didn’t have to worry about any consequences for their actions.

Jesus didn’t pull any punches with them. He told them exactly what they needed to hear.

The word, error that Jesus used means to roam around. They’re not on the right path. They’ve decided to go off on their own way.

The Lord then shows them the clear teaching of Scripture. The Bible plainly shows us the fact of the resurrection again and again. These men had chosen to ignore it for their own selfish purposes.

It’s important that we hear what the Lord is saying. There are many issues where we’re guilty of missing the truth.

Jesus tells us the underlying reasons why we leave the path of God’s truth. First, we don’t know the Scripture. That’s the knowledge that comes from experience. We get in trouble because we don’t want to apply the Scripture to our personal lives.

The second issue is just as important – not knowing the power of God. We have to understand that God is powerful enough to accomplish anything that He says in His Word.

It’s our humanity that looks at our experience and comes up with all kinds of excuses for our lack of power.

“My cousin prayed and believed God for a healing, but he died. So healing isn’t for everyone.”

Truly, I’m sorry for those who are not healed when they pray. But that still doesn’t change what the Scripture says, or God’s power toward those who believe. Throughout Scripture, we’re told that Jesus paid for our healing on the cross.

“I don’t believe that prayer in tongues or miracles are for today.”

Again, that doesn’t change the Word or God’s power. Jesus clearly said that His disciples couldn’t bring the Gospel to the world without this experience. Are you really going to tell me that we don’t need this power in our lives today?

We need to get back to a true understanding of both the Word of God and the power of God.

Question: How has the Scripture and God’s power played an important role in your life?

Hung by the Tongue

01 Jun

As we continue to study the Gospel of Mark, it’s getting closer to the time of the cross. The Pharisees are trying to trap Jesus in His words. They’re sending delegations of teachers to Him for the purpose of tripping Him up.

Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn’t we?”
Mark 12:13-15a

This is an interesting group that came to Jesus. Pharisees and Herodians. The Pharisees wanted national independence for Israel. The Herodians were very comfortable under Roman rule. They expected that no matter what Jesus answered, someone would be offended.

But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.”
Mark 12:15b

The key word here is hypocrisy. It’s really the Greek word for stage acting. Jesus knew that these men were simply playing a part; what they said about Him was not meant in reality. If they really believed what they said about Him, they would have been followers of Christ.

If you think about it, it’s actually something we should take seriously in our generation. It seems pretty easy for us to say things like, “Jesus is my Lord.” Every week we sing lyrics that say, “Jesus, you are my whole life. I give my all to you.”

We need to ask ourselves; do we really mean it, or are we just playing a part – our Sunday morning acting personas? That’s what it means to be a hypocrite. It means that under certain, public conditions, we say things that are not true in our daily lives.

“No! I’m not trying to deceive anyone. I’m just singing the words that they put on the screen.”

Remember, Jesus said that we would have to give an accounting for every careless word spoken (Matthew 12:36). I believe that includes the careless words we sing too.

They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”
And they were amazed at him.
Mark 12:16-17

This is the truth that we all need to hear. If we live in the world, then there are obligations that come with it – taxes, jobs, expenses, and other things as well. The Lord knows about these.

The problem comes in when we voluntarily obligate ourselves to the world. In our generation, we take on too many things that leave no room in our schedules for the plan of God.

We don’t have time for spiritual things because of that night class, soccer practice, movie night, or the hundred other things clamoring for our attention. We can binge watch twelve episodes of our favorite TV show but have no time for intimate prayer with the Holy Spirit.

According to Jesus, we need to get our priorities straight. The time is now for the people of God to live as though Jesus Christ truly is our whole life. Then we’ll see the hand of God manifesting the power that they had in the early church.

Question: How do you reorder your schedule to make more time for developing your spiritual life?

The Spirit and the Word

Monthly Archives: June 2018

Loving God

The Biggest Mistake

Hung by the Tongue

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