Jolted!!

If your hand causes you to sin … (Mark 9:43)

 

In today’s reading, Jesus offers words of hope to repeat offenders—that’s all of us who fall into the same sins again and again. We may not recognize it as a hopeful word, though, unless we hit the “pause” button right here in the middle of verse 9:43 (and in verses 45 and 47). So before racing on to what Jesus says about amputating wayward hands, feet, and eyes, let’s linger over that verb: to cause to sin.

In the Greek in which the Gospel was written, this phrase means to place an obstacle that causes someone to stumble. That sounds like something an enemy would do, doesn’t it? But as we have all experienced, we do it to ourselves. By the way we act (symbolized by the hand), the places we go (the feet), and the things we let into our lives (the eyes, the windows to the soul), we often sabotage our best intentions and go astray from God’s plan. 

We don’t have to remain in this conflicted state! Jesus wants us to know the joy and peace that come from living with integrity—with every part of us working together and open to God’s grace. Despite harsh-sounding words like “cut it off” and “pluck it out,” he is not telling us to mutilate or abuse our bodies. The human body is his Father’s handiwork, and Jesus spent his life restoring people’s bodies to wholeness! Remember, he has just healed a withered hand, paralyzed feet, and blind eyes (Mark 3:1-6; 2:1-11; 8:22-26).

So why does Jesus use such strong language? Because he wants to jolt us into getting the message: Sin is deadly. It separates you from the love and life God offers you. Take action! That action might be a small thing, like cutting short a conversation that is tending toward gossip. Or it might involve radical self-denial, a spiritual amputation that’s necessary to save a life. Whatever it is, Jesus stands ready to help us see and do the next thing that will bring us closer to him. Let’s do it!

“Jesus, your word says, ‘Present yourselves to God as raised from the dead to life and the parts of your bodies to God as weapons for righteousness’ (Romans 6:13). Show me how to live that out today.” 

taken from wau.org

The prayer effect.

This kind can only come out through prayer. (Mark 9:29)

Like noisy gulls screeching and squawking over picnic remains, the disciples and the scribes argued. Possibly the contention centered on the disciples’ inability to drive out demons or whether they even had the right to try. Either way, the scene was messy. Try to picture grown men disputing with one another, while a crowd forms and a father pleads frantically for help as an evil spirit tosses his son about. It’s ugly and noisy—definitely not peaceable or inspiring!

Then Jesus wades in. The mess doesn’t get in his way. He remains focused on the one who is suffering, not the diversion caused by crowds and controversies.And that, in part, is why Jesus said prayer is necessary. Through prayer, we put aside the noise of the world so that we can see more clearly what needs to be done. When we come into contact with the Lord, we allow him to influence us and guide us. We don’t get bogged down in distractions or needless controversies.

Do you believe that this is possible for you? It is! You have the Spirit in you, ready to give you his wisdom. You even have Jesus’ promise that everyone who comes to him finds rest (Matthew 11:28). God has poured his love into your heart through the Spirit, and he longs for you to encounter that love in prayer.

It all begins in prayer, but it certainly doesn’t end there! Prayer is not a moment of time with Jesus, followed by many more moments of thinking and acting the same old way. Prayer is meant to change us so that we think and act like Jesus. Prayer opens our eyes and makes us aware of things that we used to overlook, like the suffering of the poor or the marginalizing of those who don’t measure up to society’s standards. Prayer makes us more loving and considerate. 

In prayer, the Lord shows us how to live and how to love. So let him quiet the noise around you. Come away with him, and listen. He has something he wants to say to you today.

“Holy Spirit, fill me with your peace and gentleness. Help me bear good fruit wherever I go today.”

taken from wau.org.

How poor are you?

Did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom? (James 2:5)

Many years ago, a husband and wife felt called by the Lord to adopt needy children into their family. They wanted to care for children who had no other recourse, children who were facing a grim future. They decided against the first child offered to them: a healthy baby from a good home. “He’s not needy enough,” the mother said. “Plenty of other couples will take him.” Instead, they chose a daughter from a very poor country and a son with physical handicaps. 

By making such a generous decision, this couple showed that they were uniting their hearts with the heart of God, who has a “preferential option” for the poor.

We can easily identify with the behavior James describes in today’s first reading: warmly greeting the rich while dismissing or ignoring the poor. We all know what it’s like to shy away from the needy, whether their need manifests itself in physical handicaps, tattered clothing, or uncouth speech. We are tempted to be suspicious of strangers and outsiders. We find ourselves drawn to people who resemble us or who look like the kind of people we want to be. 

And yet the truth is, we are all needy before God. We are all poor and dependent on God’s mercy. We have nothing we have not received at his hand. Every one of our talents and gifts comes from his storehouse of grace and blessing.

James tells us that those who are poor are “rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom” (James 2:5). The point is not that God wants us to suffer grinding poverty and go without our basic needs. It’s that he wants us to see how much we depend on him and on each other, so that we can begin to build a kingdom of justice and kindness on this earth. Only the needy, only the “poor” in this sense, have room in their hearts for the Lord and his people. Only they will band together to build the kingdom.

So how poor do you feel today?

“Jesus, you chose to come among us as a poor man. Open my eyes to my poverty so that I can receive the riches of your love and share them with others.”

taken from wau.org

Let go of the controls

They had only one loaf. (Mark 8:14)

A young woman who had recently begun serving as a missionary was talking to people who were interested in working with her. She recounted that when she first arrived, she was overwhelmed by the conditions: primitive housing and sanitation, high unemployment, and rampant crime. She soon realized that her education didn’t matter half as much as she thought it would. “It’s your faith that matters,” she said, “not your abilities.” 

The disciples in today’s reading probably could have related to what this young woman was saying. Just before this episode, they had seen Jesus multiply loaves and fishes to feed a massive crowd—and they still had seven baskets of leftovers. But after they got into the boat, they realized that they had left all those baskets on the shore. All they had with them was one loaf of bread. It seems they were counting on being able to feed the next crowd of people with the leftover miracle bread, and now they were disappointed.

Their reaction must have been a little frustrating for Jesus, considering all that they had seen him do! Still, he reminded them, again, about what he could do with just a little bit of bread. He also warned them against the “leaven of the Pharisees,” or the tendency to take God out of the equation and try to control every situation. He knew that too much self-reliance can lead to a kind of perfectionism and anxious worrying that drains faith of its power and promise.

We are all like the disciples in one way or another. We all like to be in charge and have things under control. But we need to be careful not to try to control everything, because that’s when we risk limiting the Lord or pushing him out of the picture. This is especially true when we are faced with a particularly challenging situation and feel that we don’t have enough “bread.”

Don’t let this happen! You may have only one loaf, but that’s more than enough for the Lord. If he can feed thousands with just a little more than that, surely he can take anything you offer him and fill it with his power and grace!

“Lord, help me to forget about what I can’t do and focus on what you can do. Take all that I have today and use it for your glory!”

taken from wau.org

Atheist pilot mocked God, until he ran out of fuel in a snowstorm

By Mark Ellis -godreports.com

Raised in the secular Seventies, completely un-churched, he had no room for God until he ran out of fuel in an Alaskan storm, miles from his destination.

“I was a God mocker,” says Mark Rose, founder of Genesis Alive, and the author of Last of the Long Hunters, a story of the pilots who fly the Alaskan Arctic.

Rose learned to fly at 16, and by age 22 had become a bush pilot who helped to take care of a fleet of helicopters that worked on the Alaska pipeline. “My ego meter was on 101,” he admits.

One day he flew some hunters to the upper part of a large river on the Arctic. But on his return flight, carrying one passenger, several things went wrong. First, herds of caribou had moved in, covering his first and second choices for a landing spot. Then he began to run low on fuel, so he called ahead for a weather check at the small airport near Kotzebue, on the Baldwin Peninsula.

“Come on in, the weather’s fine,” the FAA flight service operator told him.

He decided to take the chance his fuel would hold out, but then weather conditions changed dramatically. “I ran into a snowstorm at night, and I couldn’t see the terrain, so I had to follow the gray ribbon of river below.” In the days before satellite weather imaging, the man had given him bad advice.

“All my options were evaporating as fast as I could fly.”

Rose had several friends – fellow pilots – who perished in similar flying conditions. There must be a way out, he thought. I don’t want to die at 22. I won’t get to experience marriage…

He had been flying on empty for 30 minutes. Then the engine started missing. “I was just waiting for silence and to have to crash at night.”

His mind turned to his very last option – God. Rose had never prayed before, but in desperation, he lifted up a silent prayer. If there is a God, I need your help now.

Then a voice spoke to him that was crystal clear. Son, you said the right thing. After he heard the voice, Rose also experienced the sensation of “a light bulb” that came on in his mind.

Immediately after his prayer, the plane popped out of the snowstorm! “Before me were the beautiful lights of Kotzebue – it might as well have been the lights of heaven,” he recalls.

There was only one problem – he still had to fly another 20 miles over the Kotzebue Sound, a broad expanse of salt water north of the Bering Sea.

“That was a breath-holder,” he says. When he landed safely at Kotzebue Airport, his humanist worldview collapsed. There was no earthly reason his plane should have traveled such a distance with no fuel.

Rose believes God added an hour of fuel to his tanks to save his life. “When I landed I was a different boy. I was not a Christian, but I was a believer in God.”

He thought about his grandmother, the only Christian in his family. So gramma was right; there is something out there, he thought.

Rose started to date a Christian woman who challenged him to read the Bible for the first time. As he read the pages of Scripture, something surprising happened. “I fell in love with the God of the Bible – his reasonableness, his forgiveness, his justice,” he recounts.

But his stubborn heart was still not ready to make Jesus his Savior and Lord.

Then he had another brush with death in a helicopter that crashed, which completely flattened the seat he rode in.

About the same time, he missed a flight with some of the lead contractors for the Alaskan pipeline due to a

schedule conflict. Shortly after the plane took off, it crashed, killing everyone aboard.

Later, on a flight to Fairbanks on a bush aircraft, he began to reflect on his life. I’m not happy. This whole thing is not working, he admitted to himself.

Everything I read in the Bible is either a lie or its true. It’s all or nothing. From reading the Bible I understand God is my creator. If Jesus can raise someone from the dead and forgive my sins, that’s exactly what God has for me.

At that moment, Rose surrendered his life to Jesus Christ. “When I landed in Fairbanks I was a different boy, once again.”

Freedom

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus proclaimed, “The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Later, in keeping with his opening message, he sent his apostles out to preach the same message of repentance to make way for the kingdom.

But the apostles didn’t preach in the mode of a street-corner evangelist threatening hellfire. Rather, they delivered the same good news that Jesus had preached: God loves you. He wants to heal you and give you peace. He is near, holding out freedom to all who turn to him.

This is the heart of repentance. God’s love brims over with a desire to liberate us from our “demons,” restore our spirits, and renew our minds. He has no interest in piling on guilt or fear or shame—not even to force us to repent. Rather, he wants to tell us that because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we can live in freedom.

So many voices tell us that we have no right to live in freedom as children of God. They tell us that our sins and failings have disqualified us. They tell us that God doesn’t love us enough or that he does little more than tolerate us. At the very least, we should stay meek and timid and expect only the smallest crumbs of his attention. Those voices lie! Jesus went so far as to die so that we could be set free. He gave his life so that we could enter his kingdom.

So approach the throne of grace boldly. Open your heart, and accept everything Jesus has won for you. If it seems hard or vague or perplexing, try this. Sit quietly, and tell God one thing that keeps you from him: one habitual sin, one weakness, or one fear that you think bars your access to him. Offer to trade that one thing for a taste of his love. Then wait for the Holy Spirit to speak to you. Perhaps he will tell you he loves you. Perhaps he will show you that God is not ashamed of you. Maybe he will offer you his truth in place of a lie. Whatever happens, know that the Father is with you, ready to forgive and heal and free.

“Father, I want to live in freedom, so I come to you today repenting and seeking more of your love.”

taken from wau.org

Freshness.

Jesus visited His hometown in Mark 6. As the story goes He could not perform a lot of miracles there, because of their lack of faith in Him due to their familiarity. They were familiar with His family members, upbringing etc.. It makes me wonder and consider the many ways in which we might have become so "familiar" with God that there is nothing so special any more. Do we go through the motions of church, worship or quiet time , without having an expectation of newness and frshness?

Today, God wants us to look at our relationship with Him. Has it gone stale or is it fresh like a morning breeze. If its like the former, He is asking us to revive it; To light a fire to it, to bring it alive. May our encounter with Him be fresh. May our relationship with Him be renewed every morning.

We need Him.

As I read Mark 5: 21- 43 today, one thing that stood out for me was how Jesus ignored the crowd and even the sentiments of His own disciples, What can we learn from this: In life we need to know when to ignore the distracting voices from our society and sometimes even the distracting voices of the people closest to us, in order to fulfill our God-given vision and achieve our God-given purpose. How do we know when?; by being attentive to His directing Holy Spirit.

Today, I pray that we will all have a yearning for a deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit. Indeed we need Him to survive.

What does HE say about me?

I won’t deny it! Call me crazy if you would... I just can’t help it!

Yes! I have been thinking about it!

I do not expect everyone to understanding this desire, this yearning and craving within me...

I flip through the Bible, I read it (I’m ashamed that I can’t even say “I study the Bible”); I hear it read, I listen to people speak about it and of the many people in the Bible... it’s amazing and heart warming to come to understand the way the Bible talks about them...

Speak of Abraham, Noah, Abel, Saul, David, Joshua, Gideon, Simeon, Paul, and the prophets...

I am a woman! No two ways about that...

But I dare to compare myself to these men the Bible speaks about...

If God wrote the Bible with His own fingers and in His very own handwriting and with His own ink (literally speaking)... He speaks of these men and women in the exact same words and ways the inspired writers wrote them...

Are you thinking what I am thinking?

These people were either described as devout, righteous, friends, after God’s own heart, found, blessed, upright, holy,... and the list goes on and on and on...

Then it got me thinking...

My name doesn’t have to be written in the Bible...

But right now, as I live life... if God looks down on me, looks at me, looks me straight in the eye; what are the words He would use? What would He say about me? How would He describe me?

I take a closer look at the women of the Bible...

From the Old Testament through to the New Testament, there are women mentioned in some parts of the Bible... I had the chance to take a critical look at each woman every weekend last year...

I am sad, happy, awestruck, amazed, and heartbroken and all... but I still ask, if I were a woman of the Bible, how would I be portrayed to the Christians and all who read the Bible?

After pouring her box of alabaster on the Lord’s feet, He said of her “wherever and whenever the Gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done today will also be told, in memory of her” (emphasis mine).

I ask myself, wherever the Gospel is preached, if I were in Mary of Magdala’s shoes... what would He have said about me?

The Bible uses specific words about certain people (men and women) in describing, praising and telling the world about them... I still ask...

“What would He say about me?”

He tells me I am His child, I am His very own and he loves me...

Now I’m thinking...

What is a child supposed to do?

Children are spontaneous and innocent, pure and blameless...

They see the beauty all around them and in everything...

They live every day, not without their own fears, but in their own simply beautiful understanding of trust and hope.

Every adult has an inner child, either lost or crying to be heard... sobbing silently in a dark corner of the heart yearning to be reached out to; but alas, children must be seen and not heard!

If I am a child of God, does it mean I have to be all serious and all so responsible that everything I see, touch, hear, do and ought to do becomes so great a responsibility that I miss out on the fun of life?

I dare to say, look at children around you, listen to the sound of their voices, the joyful rings of their laughter; look back at the wonderful times of growing up... what did it feel like being a child?

Isn’t it the same as being a child of God?

I wouldn’t want God to describe me as one ‘who did but was not’.

Being a child of God, is no different from being a child...

God would not judge like humans, based on what I did, how much I earned, how very well educated or literate or intellectual I am, how busy a person I am, the kind of job I do or the school I attended...

He created me to be... and not just to do and do and do and miss out on the beauty of life.

I don’t know what God would say about me...

I would love to know though...

I know I am His child and He created me to be out of love...

But it doesn’t hurt or kill to just ask again:

What does He say about me?

What will He say about me?

He is pleased with you

Perhaps the Lord will look upon my affliction. (2 Samuel 16:12)

 

How easy it is to think that when someone sins, it means he or she doesn’t love God! How easy to assume that this person has a permanently hardened heart or has completely turned against the Lord! But King David is the perfect example that this is far from the truth. David pleased God, warts and all, because he continued to pursue a relationship with him, despite his sins. So pleasing was David’s desire for holiness that God chose to have Jesus born through his line. 

David remained faithful to God—not through never sinning but through repentance and humility. Shimei cursed David and threw stones at him, and when David’s nephew, Abishai, offered to “lop off” Shimei’s head, David rebuked him. “Suppose the Lord has told him to curse David,” he said

(2 Samuel 16:10). David knew he was a sinner, so Shimei’s curses came as no surprise. But at the same time, he surrendered himself to God, trusting that the Lord would be gracious to him. Such humility and faithfulness must have pleased God very deeply. 

Guess what? You please God! We have all sinned. Maybe our faults are not as grave as murder, and maybe they are. Whatever our sins may be, we all have our own list of offenses against God that deserve strong judgment. Like David, we know these offenses, just as God does. But what God wants, rather than to curse us, is to see us face our sins in the same way that David did. He wants us to acknowledge them, turn from them, and earnestly seek his forgiveness and healing.

Even when David was suffering the consequences of his faults, he trusted that God is good and that he can do nothing but good. No matter what we do, God is ready to sweep away our sin and strengthen us against temptation. Fix this truth firmly in your mind. And when your feelings tell you that God doesn’t love you, remember David. Remember God’s mercy. Remember: he is pleased with you! 

“Father, remind me today of your unshakable love. Help me find joy in your mercy and redemption.”

-taken from wau.org.

Just come.

In Hebrews 2:14-18, the Lord reminds us about the fact that He had to go through all the struggles and pain as a human, just as we are doing now. He has been there and empathizes with us. This presents to us a call to a more intimate relationship, knowing that He has made a way for us. We should not be shy or afraid to sincerely express what we are going through or feel to Him. He is assuring us today, that regardless of our experiences, we will never walk alone. He is with us and shares what we feel. We just need to know this and come to Him; come without guilt,  come without fear- JUST COME.