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.

Day 48 Bible Reading

Exodus 21-22, Mark 2: 18-28, Mark 3: 1-30, Psalm 25: 8-15

Mark 2: 21-22 (ESV)

“No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.””

Verses 21-22 from Mark 2 has always been confusing to me. I’m not sure I quite get it, but from reading various commentaries I have come to understand that Jesus was talking about himself and his mission in these statements. His teachings were so different than what was being traditionally taught in the temples. Even though the coming of Jesus was foretold in the Old Testament, what we he was teaching was so radically different that everyone would have to have a new way of looking at things. Did Christ know he was creating a new religion with his teachings? Or did he want Judaism to expand, to change to encompass his teachings? I don’t even know the answer to this question, but history tells us the people in Jesus’ time did not want to change and expand their beliefs to embrace Jesus’ teachings. So a new religion was formed, and one that would overtake and shape all of the Western world. I often wonder what our world would have been like if Jesus’ teachings would have been embraced by the majority of his people after the resurrection. Would our history still have been as violent? Would we have found other people to persecute? I don’t know. But I would have liked to experienced that world.

Day 47 Bible Reading

Exodus 19-20, Mark 1: 29-45, Mark 2: 1-17, Psalm 25: 1-7

Psalm 25: 4-5 (ESV)

“Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.”

Verses 4-5 from Psalm 25 reminded me that we need pray to Christ these verses every day or our own version of it. If we pray a prayer like this every day, it will help in those times when something happens in our life and we don’t understand God’s purpose for it. I like the series The Chosen, and to support them finishing the series, I decided to watch Season 4 in the theaters. I don’t want to have spoilers, but I think it will come as no surprise if you read the Bible, that there are things that happen in the series so far that have to do with miracles and death. Why do miracles happen for some and not for others? Why do some people die young and others live to a long age? These are issues I know as Christians we will wrestle with at some time or another in our life. My friend Amy died many years ago from a brain tumor, that she discovered when her migraines got worse. I remember the last afternoon I spent with her. It was horrible. She didn’t even know who I was, and I was her best friend. She felt so far way from me, and it was the most painful thing in the world to experience. She was so young and bright. She was my role model in many ways. I delivered her rent check once when she wasn’t feeling well from the brain tumor and realized her monthly rent was equal to my monthly paycheck. That floored me! I remember desperately praying to God to understand why my friend had to die so young and feeling so angry at God as well. I look back on that experience now, and I know if I had been praying to God more frequently to understand his ways, I would not have been so distraught and angry at God.