Day 50 Bible Reading

Exodus 25 & 26, Mark 4: 30-41, Mark 5: 1-20, Psalm 26

Mark 4: 30-32 (ESV)

“And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.””

I love the mustard seed parable, which I posted earlier when we were going through the Gospel of Matthew. After reading a few bible commentaries, I didn’t know that some theologians consider these birds as “emissaries of Satan” because of what Jesus said earlier in Mark 4 in the parable of the soils. The birds devoured some of the seed and Jesus tells his disciples that “Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.”  Some theologians say that the size and status of God’s work are not necessarily a benefit because of our sinful nature.  Was Christ referring to the corruption in the temples in his time? There have been many large Christian churches that end up in the headlines because of their corrupt practices. One thing I do believe is that our sinful nature will come out eventually, no matter how hard we try to push it down, and we have to pray to God to help us detect those “birds” early and keep them out of every growing faith tree.

Day 49 Bible Reading

Exodus 23 & 24, Mark 3: 31-35, Mark 4: 1-29, Psalm 25: 16-22

Mark 4: 9 (ESV)

“And he said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.””

Verse 9 from Mark 4 is one of my favorite sayings of Christ. God is all around us, in everything we do, in what we say and sometimes in what other people say, but only if we have the “right” ears to hear will we hear it as God. I think of all the times I have prayed for answer from from God, and the answer has come from a random thing I’ve seen on TV, from a random passage from a book, from a conversation with a friend even. But only if I was open to hearing it. If wasn’t open to hearing it, then I think God could have sat down next to me on my bed and shouted it in ear my ear and I wouldn’t have heard it, because I was too wrapped up in wanting to get the answer in the way that I wanted to receive the answer and I already knew what the answer should be. I didn’t want God’s way and his answer. I wanted my way and my answer. I had an issue that I was praying about and I wasn’t getting an answer. A friend suggested that I do a certain thing to solve it, and I dismissed it because it wasn’t the answer that I wanted. But after a few months, God did start to give me clues as to what his answer would be and, and in the end his answer was exactly what my friend had recommended months earlier. God was speaking through her to me, but I didn’t have the ears to hear it because I was too caught up in wanting my way and my answer, and not God’s way and answer. I could have saved months of anguish and doubt, if only I had ears to hear.