Who's side are you on?

    These chapters in Mark are so jam packed it is difficult to know what to share in the blog, without it turning into a book.

Chapter 9

The Transfiguration (1-10)
Question about Elijah (11-13)
Jesus casting out a demon that the disciples couldn't (14-29)
Jesus' death and resurrection (30-32)
Servitude (33-35)
Receiving Children (36-37)
How Christians are treated by others (41-42)
Nothing is worth going to hell over (43-48)
Fire and Salt (49-50)

    I could write many words on any one of these subjects, but the one that stood out to me in Chapter 9 was verses 38-40. These verses have always helped me keep a proper balance in my approach to other Christian groups. If they are not against us, they are on our side.
    Now let me quickly say that Jesus did not say that the truth doesn't matter and we should just lay down all our doctrinal differences and all be one. We have so many other scriptures that teach us that we are to stand for truth, that we know that is not what Jesus had in mind.
    However, what does it mean to stand for the truth. That you isolate yourself of in a little corner of the world and hold the fort till Jesus comes. That you rebuke those who claim the same Jesus (there are religious groups that don't have the same Jesus we do) and forbid them from doing anything for God?
    You see there are going to be a whole lot of people in heaven that were led to salvation by someone with whom we might have several scriptural differences. I would say that there are going to be some men and women that will be greatly rewarded for their faithful service to the Lord, with whom we would not have been completely comfortable going to their church.
    So should we just line up and act like our differences do not exist? No way! But if we are viewing these people as being on the opposing team, we are making a mistake. You see there is a world full of people that don't care what your church, or any other church for that matter, believes, and they are not going to care until someone reaches them with the message of salvation.

The Kingdom is going to the Dogs

Holding tradition above God's Word (Mark 7:1-13)

    Once again we catch the Pharisees in their groove of trying to make others live by their rules that have nothing to do with the Bible. This is called legalism and God does not want us to be legalist. Jesus warned the disciples about this in the next chapter, although they did not completely understand what he was talking about (Mark 8:11-21). We see that they were fault finders (7:2), and that they were holding what they thought above what God's word said.
    We must avoid being fault finders, and when it is necessary to point out a fault or wrong (Sometimes it is) we must do so by God's Word and not our own preferences.

Evil proceeds from the heart (Mark 7:14-23)

    Here Jesus touches on a very important concept. All evil proceeds from within, from the heart or soul of man. Man is triune (Spirit, Soul, and Body). The Soul is the mind, will, and emotion of man. It is the part of us that thinks, feels, and decides. This is the place from which all sin comes. That is we have never committed a sin that we did not first think about and decide to do it. The key way to avoid sin is to catch it in the thought processes and kill it there.
    We are told to renew our mind (Romans 12:2), not be double minded (James 1:8), and be of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). If you follow God's patterns to train your mind, you can avoid sin.

1. Hide God's Word in your heart (Psalm 119:11)
2. When tempted, use God's word as your weapon against Satan (Matthew 4:1-11, Ephesians 6:17, James 4:7)
3. By catching sin in our thought processes we can force it to obey Jesus (2 Corinthians 10:1-6)
4. Repeat the process over and over again. Because you can win the battle of temptation, but the war is not over until Jesus returns and Satan will attack again (Luke 4:13)

Being called a dog (Mark 7:24-30)

    What would you do if someone called you a dog? It depends on who you believed that person to be. If it is just the average Joe, you are probably just going to turn your back on that or worse. However, if you believe that person to be God or God's representative, then you are probably going to take it and even embrace it. After all, if God says you are a dog then you are a dog.
    We don't use the term dog. We use the Biblical term SINNER. It is just as offensive as calling people dogs, maybe more. Yet you can not witness to someone without calling them a sinner (although some have tried, by making their witness all about heaven verses hell).  Now you can soften the blow by including yourself as a sinner when you accuse them, but you must make the accusation. Study the Rich Young Ruler and see if you conclude as I do that his biggest problem was that he did not see himself as a sinner (Luke18:18-23). If people aren't ready to come to grips with their sin, then they are not ready for Jesus.

Many Miracles

Deaf mute healed (Mark 7:31-37)
Feeding 4000 (Mark 8:1-10)
Blind Healed (Mark 8:22-26)

The question of who Jesus is (Mark 8:27-30)

    Everything rest on this question. First, who you say Jesus is really determines your future. If you get the right answer you will end up in heaven. If you get the wrong answer you will end up in hell. By the way, God does  not want you to be confused. He made the answer crystal clear in the Bible. There were many incorrect answers, but Peter's was right. It was the one based on what God said. Jesus is the Christ.
    Christ is a title of Jesus. It means the anointed one. He was anointed to come and die a cruel death for our sins. He was anointed to rise from the dead, proving he has power over death and the sin that causes death. He is anointed to come again in the future as Lord and King. Is that your Jesus? If not, you are in trouble.
    It is also critical that the church get the identity of Jesus right. In Matthew we are given a little more detail about this conversation. Jesus told Peter that he would build his church upon the rock (sure foundation) of that revelation of who he is (Matthew 16:16-18). The church is built on the fact that Jesus is the Christ. If we want to join Jesus in building his church the key is to build it upon the revelation of who Jesus is.

Peter rebuked for thinking he knew more than Jesus (Mark 8:31-33)

The cost of discipleship (Mark 8:34-38)

    It is  a sacrifice to follow Jesus, but the pay off is out of this world, literally.

Walking Jesus

    Can you imagine what it would have been like to have actually been there with Jesus while he was here on the earth? Wouldn't that have been exciting? Do you ever wish you could have been there? Soak in these events in Today's Journey.

Demons cast out of the man from Gadarene (5:1-20)
Jairus' daughter raised from the dead (5:21-24, 35-43)
Woman with flow of blood healed (5:25-34)
Rejection in his home town (6:1-6)
12 sent out on short term mission (6:7-13, 30-31)
Herod believes Jesus is John the Baptist raised from the dead. Explanation of John the Baptist death (6:14-29)
Feeding of the 5000 (6:32-44)
Walking on water (6:45-56)

    It would have been awesome to be there, but then again it is awesome to be here. We get to walk with Jesus during his life here on earth through the pages of scripture and we get to walk with him now through the power and person of the Holy Spirit.

Dealing with critics and growing God's kingdom

Jesus dealing with his critics (Mark 3)

    Throughout his ministry Jesus had to deal with critics. This is what people do when they do not understand something or do not like it, they criticize.
    In this case we are told that they "watched him closely...so that they might accuse him" (2). I have met some people like that in my day. Ones who feel they are the Christian hall monitor. They are constantly keeping a watchful eye, so that they might accuse. The problem is that the accusations seldom have any thing to do with scripture and are based on personal opinion and preferences. Just as was the case with these religious people of Jesus' day. Oh Lord, help us be religious about the right things. We have enough problems of our own without running around watching other to accuse them.  
    Another sad thing is that when we get involved in this accusing it accomplishes nothing but to stroke our own ego. If we were really a concerned Christian, we would go to the person alone to talk to them and base our observations only on God's word. Instead people often talk to the whole world about the other person without ever approaching them.
    This grieved Jesus because it displayed the hardness of their heart (5). Isn't it interesting how right and wrong always get back to the condition of our heart. Oh God keep us from having hard hearts and make ours soft and pliable in your hands.
    They were plotting to destroy him (6). Can you imagine? And yet in so called Christian circles this happens. No wonder the world sometimes struggles to see in us anything attractive. God help it not to be so among our church.

Parables (Mark 4)

    So many things could be said about these specific parables found in this chapter but I want to make a very simple observation. These are parables about God's kingdom and they teach that God's kingdom is designed to grow. With that in mind what are we doing to help God's kingdom grow?

When Satan tries to convince you that you have messed up too bad to be used of God, remind him of John Mark

Brief note on chapters 1-2
    As we read the first couple of chapters of Mark we notice that he is very concise and straight to the point. There is not a lot of added details, just the main points of each incident. We see John the Baptist, Jesus baptism, many miracles and he already starts to tangle with the Pharisees.

A lesson from the Author's life
    Mark was written by John Mark. We met him in the book of Acts and were left with a less than favorable impression as he left Paul and Barnabas on the first missionary journey and later Paul and Barnabas went separate ways as they could not agree on whether to take John Mark with them or not. The point is though that he later became profitable (2 Timothy 4:11, ...Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for ministry.), in fact so profitable that God used him to write a portion of scripture. Perhaps you have made some bad decisions in the past that made you or other people think you were not useful in the ministry, but you can redeem yourself and be used of God, if you are willing to do the right things now.
   

You have fallen from Grace

Law is Bondage (Galatians 4)

    Paul continues to impress upon the Galatian believers that they are making a big mistake by trying to add the law into their salvation experience, just like we would be making a big mistake to add any rule system into our salvation. To choose rules over relationship is bondage and not freedom.

Falling from Grace (Galatians 5:1-13)

    I remember growing up that "Falling from Grace" was a big catch phrase with those who believed you could lose your salvation. They would say, "See, the Bible says it is possible to fall from grace". (Galatians 5:4) I believe completely that you can fall from grace, but what does that mean? Well, verse four makes it very clear. Those who attempt to be justified by the law have fallen from grace. You see, we have clearly read in Romans and here in Galatians as well as in Old Testament passages that have been quoted that we are justified by faith. So to seek justification through the law or any set of rules is to fall from grace. In other words, grace stands as the supreme, indeed the only, way of salvation and to try to be saved, or justified, by the law or rules is to fall from grace to something inferior.
    So the verse that actually contains the catch phrase for those that believe you can lose your salvation, teaches the exact opposite. It teaches that you are safe and free in grace, but you fall into bondage and insecurity when you try to make it by keeping rules.

The importance of the Holy Spirit's work in our life (Galatians 5:14-26)

Restoring those who have been overtaken in a fault (Galatians 6:1-2)

Keeping ourselves straight by doing right (Galatians 6:3-10)

Closing Remarks (Galatians 6:11-18)

Being baptized into Christ

Paul's stand against the law for righteousness. (Galatians 2)

    He uses his personal experience to relate the truth. This is often an effective tool.
    He relates to us that the Christian life is one of sacrifice. (20) We are to be crucified with Christ. This is the same principle that was related to us in Romans 12:1. It is no longer us, but it is Jesus in us and through us.

The true Seed of Abraham (Galatians 3)

    Once again we are clearly told that the Law (the Jewish law, but any set of good works for righteousness would apply) was not for the purpose of saving people, but it was designed to help us see our need for Jesus (19, 22, 24). Christ is the Seed of Abraham. Notice that it is capitalized in verse 19. Through Christ we become the seed of Abraham (small s in verse 29) and we become heirs to the promise. What promise? All those that go with our salvation (forgiveness, freedom for condemnation, eternal life, and on and on).
    What is meant in verse 27 about us being "baptized into Christ"? It could get quite lengthy to fully explain, but the point I want to make is that it is not baptism in water. We can be guilty of thinking a scripture is talking about baptism every time we see water, but that is not the case. We can also be guilty of thinking the scriptures are talking about water baptism every time we see the word baptism, but that is not true either. The word baptism is a transliteration instead of a translation. The Greek word baptizo has been turned into the English baptism, but the word itself means immersion. So when we are baptized in water, we are immersed showing the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. The scriptures also speak of baptism in the Holy Spirit (immersion in the Spirit), which is a special empowering that God has given to his church. Here we see baptisms into Jesus, immersion into Christ, which is speaking of our salvation experience. When we got saved we were immersed in Christ.