Category Archives: Mark

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The Offering Police

Read: Mark 12

“Jesus sat down near the collection box in the Temple and watched as the crowds dropped in their money.” (Mark 12:41)

It was offering time in the Temple, and Jesus was watching! He was the “offering police” that day, and he didn’t just cast a brief glance and happen to notice what people were giving, he was watching them like a hawk. He saw the quantity and evaluated the quality of each gift. Jesus was providing a kind of a play-by-play commentary of offering time at the Temple on that particular day.

How would you like that next Sunday when the ushers received the offering? What if your pastor came off the platform with the microphone and provided a running commentary on each gift, announcing the amounts in the offering envelopes and revealing if they were proportionate to the giver’s income or not?

Well, that won’t ever happen in most churches I know, certainly not in mine. But I’ll tell you what: It sure would spice up offering time! There would be no need for an offertory; the choir could take a break; the solo could be saved for another part of the service. The play-by-by would be more than enough, wouldn’t you say!

Of course, I am being facetious, but you get the point: Your giving is private, but God knows. He knows what is in your bank account, and he knows what is in your heart. He knows if you are giving joyfully, generously, sacrificially and worshipfully, or if you are giving grudgingly, stingily, selfishly and just for show.

The amount doesn’t count; it’s the heart that God wants in your giving. The poor widow gave only two mites—the modern equivalent of not even one penny. But she gave all she had. She gave out of her poverty, trusting that her meager generosity toward God would now turn into his lavish generosity toward her.

The others that gave in the offering that day gave out of their abundance, but they didn’t put their faith on the line in doing so. They still had plenty, so there was no sacrifice, no trust, no risky obedience involved.

God probably won’t require you to empty your bank account the next time you give, but for sure, he wants you to empty your heart. That is, he wants all of you when you give. He wants your ongoing stewardship to be characterized by love, generosity, sacrifice, risky faith, and expectant trust.

Before you give again, I hope you will give that some thought. And next Sunday, when it’s offering time, take a moment to thank God that there will be no play-by-play commentary.

“Give according to your income, lest God make your income according to your giving.”

 

What If God Took Over?

Check your bank statement.  Truly, this is one of the leading indicators of whether God has taken over your life…or not!

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Beware Of Cheap Forgiveness

Read: Mark 11

“I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours. But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too. But if you refuse to forgive, your Father in heaven will not forgive your sins.” (Mark 11:24-26)

Don’t skip past these words too quickly! Far too many Christians claim an exemption on this one—to the Lord’s dismay and their own harm.

Having said that, there is another side to the forgiveness coin that we need to consider if we are going to have theological balance in this matter. The question that always comes up when you begin to talk about forgiveness is: Do we have to forgive everyone who has offended us?

I think there is a fair amount of confusion on this, and a lot of misguided theology is to blame. Perhaps you’ve been taught that you are to forgive others even when they don’t repent of the wrong they have committed. And the scriptural justification for that is Jesus’ words we read here. That might be leveraged, for instance, to say to the wife of a chronically unfaithful husband, “You gotta’ forgive him, or God won’t forgive you.”

But that interpretation fails to reconcile Jesus’ teachings with the rest of scripture, best summarized in Colossians 3:13 and Ephesians 4:32, where we are commanded to forgive others in the same manner that God forgives us.

How does God forgive us? Only when we confess. Confession opens the door to forgiveness. I John 1:9 says, “If…” underscore that conditional clause, “…if we confess our sins…” then comes the apodosis, or the consequence, “God will forgive our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Nothing in the Bible indicates that God forgives sin if people don’t confess and repent of the sin.

Furthermore, the Bible always calls the sinner to repentance—that is, a radical reversal of the attitudes and actions that resulted in the sin. Confession without repentance is always hollow. (Matthew 3:7-8, Acts 2:37-38)

So when a wife is encouraged to forgive her adulterous husband while he’s continuing in his sin, she’s being asked to do something that God himself doesn’t require. What Scripture does teach is that we must always be ready and willing, as God is always ready and willing, to forgive those who repent.

Bonhoeffer

But forgiveness without confession and repentance doesn’t lead to reconciliation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great theologian who was martyred by hanging in a Nazis concentration camp in 1945, said forgiveness without repentance is “cheap grace… which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner.”

Let me suggest that when there is no confession for a moral wrong committed against you, the better response would be to release that person to God’s justice in hopes that God will deal with them in a way that brings them to repentance and reconciliation. Further, we are never to give into bitterness, hold grudges, or let anger over sin pull us into sin.  We must be very alert when we find ourselves in such a situation.

If you forgive cheaply, as Bonhoeffer warns, you may very well circumvent God’s process to bring that person to repentance and in so doing, close the door to reconciliation in your relationship.

Be very discerning about cheap grace. Genuine forgiveness and Biblical reconciliation require a two-person transaction that is enabled by the confession and repentance.

Yes, forgive! Do it early and often, quickly and fully. Be a forgiver, for sure, but don’t go beyond what Scripture teaches.

“Forgiveness does not mean excusing.” ~C.S. Lewis

What If God Took Over?

Is there someone you have not forgiven?  Why?  Did their offense against you rise to the level of a moral offense?  Are they continuing in harmful behavior against you or others?  If the offense doesn’t rise to that high threshold, then go before the Lord and ask him to help you forgive.  If the offense does meet that threshold, make sure you are not holding on to destructive anger, allowing bitterness to take root in your soul, or nursing a grudge.  Don’t let their sin pull you into the sin.

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What Does God Look Like?

Read: Mark 10

One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children.” (Mark 10:13-14)

What does God look like? No human being has ever seen him and lived to tell about it. So we are left to wonder.

I love the story of the little girl who was drawing a picture when her mother asked, “Honey, what are you drawing?” Quite confidently, the little girl said, “I’m drawing a picture of God!” The mother reminded her that no one really knows what God looks like. To which the little girl said, “they will when I get done.”

In Jesus’ day, the people of Israel had never seen God. They only knew of him from their wooden rituals, vacuous traditions and misguided theologies. They had no visible clue as to what God was like, but Jesus came along and said, “they will when I get done.”

So what does God looks like? Just look at Jesus. The Apostle Paul tells us in Colossians 1:15, “Jesus is the image of the invisible God.” Verse 19 says, “For in Jesus all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.”

In other words, when you see Jesus, you’re seeing God himself. Jesus is the perfect picture of God; the absolutely accurate image of the Father. Jesus is the invisible God made visible.

So what does watching Jesus tell us about God here in Mark 10? Well, how does God feel about your marriage? Just look at Jesus telling the Pharisees, “What God has joined together let not man separate.” (Verse 9)

How does God feel about your children? Just look at Jesus gathering up a bunch of kids in his arms and saying, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children.” (Verse 14)

How does God feel about your struggle to let go of earthly dependencies? Just look at Jesus’ interaction with the rich young ruler: “Jesus looked at him and loved him.” (Verse 21)

How does God feel about your competitiveness with others? Just look at Jesus saying to his disciples, “Whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant.” (Verse 44)

How does God feel about the things you care about? Just look at Jesus asking blind Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Verse 51)

What is God like? What does he look like? How does he feel about you? Just take a look at Jesus—it will really encourage you. Take a moment just to drink in what Hebrews 4:15 (The Message) has to say about it:

In Jesus, we don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.

In Jesus, God has identified with us so we can identify with him. In Jesus, God has come near to us so we can come near to God. In Jesus, God has made a way for us to live before him with complete confidence and daring prayerfulness—we can “come boldly to the throne of our gracious God, and there we will receive his mercy and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”

Wow!  In Jesus, we get a live demonstration of what God is like.  And that’s a good deal for us way beyond description!

“Who would have had sufficient daring of imagination to conceive that God Almighty would have appeared among men as a little child?  We should have conceived something sensational, phenomenal, catastrophic, appalling!  The most awful of the natural elements would have formed His retinue, and men would be chilled and frozen with fear.  But, He came as a little child. The great God ’emptied Himself’; He let in the light as our eyes were able to bear it.”  ~John Henry Jowett

What If God Took Over?

Try offering this prayer:  “Father, thank you for making yourself known to me in Jesus.  And thank you for making a way through Jesus for me to come into your presence to receive the mercy and find the grace that I need to make it through this day in victorious fashion.”

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Last To First

Read: Mark 9

He sat down, called the twelve disciples over to him, and said, “Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else.” (Mark 9:35)

Here is yet another example of the head-scratching logic of the Kingdom of God.  We get that a lot from Jesus: To live, you’ve got to die; to get, you’ve got to give; to receive honor, you must be willing to be humble; to be rich, you’ve got to give it all away; to be first, you’ve got to be okay with last place; to be great, you’ve got to be the servant of all.

Though from the world’s point of view this is totally upside down, its’ totally normal from heaven’s perspective.  When you really think about these kinds of counterintuitive statements, you realize they were values that Jesus deeply held and, in fact, were values he lived out in actions every single day.

Furthermore, as you study the life of Jesus in the Gospels as well as the theology of the entire New Testament, you come to the conclusion that these were not just values Jesus suddenly embraced when he became man just to impress people, these were pre-eternal values fundamental to the essence of God’s being.  As Jesus lived out humility, generosity, servanthood, and sacrifice, you were seeing who God is in living color.

When we invite Jesus to become the Savior and Lord of our lives and embrace the values of God’s Kingdom as our own, these, then, become the fundamental attributes of who we are and the defining characteristics of how we go about the business of the Kingdom.  Or so it should!  If we have had an authentic salvation experience, then humility will be evident to others who are watching our lives.  Generosity will characterize our practices with money and possessions. We will eschew pushing and clawing our way to the top and serve our way into greatness.  And in a way that authenticates the totality of our claim to Christian faith, we willingly lay down our lives for others—not only in dying, but in the much more demanding sacrificial living.

That is the kind of greatness that endures—greatness in the eyes of God.

“The voice of humility is God’s music, and the silence of humility is God’s rhetoric.” ~Francis Quarles

What If God Took Over?

Openly and truthfully examine your attitudes and practices in following areas where the values of heaven and the demands of earth are in constant tension: 1) money and possessions, 2) recognition and position, 3) power and pleasure. What steps can you take to exhibit a more Christ-like response to these critical concerns?

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A Cross-Free Way? Think Again!

Read: Mark 8

Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. “Get away from me, Satan!” he said. “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” (Mark 8:33)

What a dramatic moment this must have been for the disciples—especially Peter. Jesus had just asked the disciples this question, “Who do people say that I am?” And Peter’s simple yet profound prophetic response was a declaration for the ages: “You are the Christ!” (Mark 8:27-30)

But when Jesus began to speak of his impending sacrificial death, Peter didn’t like it one bit, so he began to rebuke Jesus. How could one who was to be “Christ” suffer and die? This certainly wasn’t in line with God’s will, Peter thought. Peter had an entirely different definition for what it meant to be “Christ”, and a far better agenda than the one Jesus was suggesting.

That’s when Jesus turned on Peter and gave him the spiritual smack-down of all smack-downs. Anyone who reads these dramatic words — “Get away from me, Satan” — certainly must think, “Wow! Glad that wasn’t me!” It was then that Jesus went on to talk about the cost of discipleship. True discipleship requires one to jettison his own agenda — “let him deny himself”; commit to God’s agenda — “take up his cross”; and make daily, continual obedience his highest priority — “and follow me.” (Mark 8:34)

As dramatic as this rebuke seems in print, however, may I suggest that perhaps it wasn’t as focused on Peter as we might think. When you look at the context, what you see is that Jesus wasn’t so much upset with Peter, the person, as with Peter’s misguided agenda. You see, Peter’s plan would have taken Jesus off the Father’s mission. It was the easier, smarter, less painful path, but as Jesus said, it was “not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.” (Mark 8:33).

In a sense, we really were there when Jesus uttered that rebuke. We were not only there — we were Peter! How so? Haven’t we, too, been the tool of Satan in desiring the things of men rather than the things of God. How often have we preferred our way — the easier, cheaper, quicker, pain-free way — to discipleship rather than the way of the cross? How often has the essence of our prayers, if not our desires, been, “not your will but mine be done”?

Peter took the brunt of Christ’s rebuke that day—but he did so as the representative head of a class of spiritual dunderheads of which you and I are members.  However, Peter ultimately got his spiritual act together, and so can we. What it requires, though, is that we get the things of God rather than the things of men in our view finder, and keep our sights there.

“No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.” ~William Penn

What If God Took Over?

If you are attracted to a cross-free path to discipleship, then you may want to pray this prayer every day this week:  “Lord, deliver me from the Evil One, who would lure me onto the easier, quicker, pain-free path of the things of men.  May your will be done—not mine.  May your kingdom come today in my life, just as it is done in heaven.”

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That Stinks To High Heaven!

Read: Mark 7

Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you”, for he wrote,” These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God. For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition”. (Mark 7:6-8)

What stinks?  When people, especially spiritual influencers who ought to know better, exalt religious rituals over a real relationship with God, God holds his nose! When a religious activity is devoid of loving obedience, God finds it odious, obnoxious and he is repulsed by both the act and the religious spirit behind it.

That’s what Jesus was dealing with in this story.  As he began to preach and minister the Kingdom of God, conflict with the Pharisees, religious leaders and other “stakeholders” in traditional Judaism increased dramatically. They didn’t like the fact that Jesus wasn’t holding to their traditions at all—and Jesus wasn’t intimidated by their pressure to conform.

In this particular conflict, they were upset that his disciples didn’t go through ritual washing before eating. This was just one of many “violations” that upset them. When they questioned Jesus about it, he let loose a holy tirade against their ridiculous traditions. In a Divine “dressing down”, we see something of what is truly irksome to God: Shallow, hypocritical, spiritually incongruent religiosity.

Jeremy Taylor writes, “The Pharisees minded what God spoke, but not what He intended….They were busy in the outward work of the hand, but incurious of the affections and choice of the heart. So God was served in the letter, they did not much inquire into His purpose; and therefore they were curious to wash their hands, but cared not to purify their hearts.”

God wasn’t impressed with the Pharisees, nor is he impressed with your rituals; he wants to be in relationship with you. Holding onto tradition for the sake of tradition is meaningless to God; he wants your acts of worship to be authentic. Lips that affirm one thing but a heart that holds to something else is completely odious to God—be very alert to that.

God desires integrity in our behavior, intimacy in our walk with him, and authenticity in our worship practices. Spirituality devoid of integrity, intimacy, and authenticity is even more repulsive to God than people who know they are sinners and don’t try to hide the fact.

Now there is an obvious application to this particular reading: God wants your heart. And he wants the heart you offer him to be pure. But let me suggest a riskier application of this text: Rather than reading them and feeling a sense of spiritual justification, why not read yourself into the story as one of the Pharisees. You see, the longer you are in the faith, the greater the likelihood that you will slip into some of the very practices God found so odious in the religious establishment of Jesus’ day.

Whatever it takes, keep your relationship with God fresh and vital!

“The Pharisees are not all dead yet, and are not all Jews.” ~John McClintock

What If God Took Over?

Are the activities of your faith born out of ritualistic observance or loving obedience?  Remember, God wants what you do with your hands to reflect the love that is in your heart.  If that is not true for you, then back up and get your heart right!

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Tying God’s Hands

Read: Mark 6

And because of their unbelief, he couldn’t do any miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their unbelief. (Mark 6:5-6)

This has to be one of the most amazing texts in the entire Bible. Remember, this Jesus was the second person of the Trinity.  He was the visible image of the invisible God. He was the pre-existent one. He was the agent of creation. He was the Ancient of Days, the Alpha and Omega.  This very Jesus had raised the dead, healed the sick, delivered the demonized, fed the five thousand, and walked on water.

Yet this very Jesus could do no mighty works in his own town because of the unbelief of the people who knew him.

As unbelievable as that seems to you and me, even Jesus—the one who had seen it all and done it all—was amazed by their unbelief. It must take an awful lot to stump God, yet God the Son was completely stunned by their  stubborn unbelief!

What is the one thing Jesus can’t do? Violate a person’s willful unbelief, that’s what. He will help a person’s humble admission of unbelief (Mark 9:14-25), but he will not impose his Lordship on someone’s refusal to give him a chance.  Our steadfast refusal to trust him is the one thing that will tie God’s hands!

Do you think we sometimes do that with Jesus? We’ve seen his glory; we’ve tasted his goodness; we’ve been touched by his love and grace and power. Yet we still question his right of Lordship over our lives. How? By doubt, worry, fear, depression, anger—engaging in any number of self-medicating, self-destructive acts—overspending, overeating, oversleeping, over-talking, over-sharing, over-indulging, sexually addictive behaviors, substance abuse or by any number of other faithless attitudes and activities.

Why would we surrender to any of those faith-killers when we have beheld the power and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ? I don’t know. Sometimes my own propensity to resist his loving Lordship amazes me.

Here’s what I do know: If we will take an honest look at where we are resisting his right to rule over us—both passively and willfully—and come to him with a humble request that he help our unbelief, even that crack in the door will be enough for him to do his mighty works in our lives.

“Beware in your prayers, above everything else, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do. Expect unexpected things, ‘above all that we ask or think’. Each time, before you Intercede, be quiet first, and worship God in His glory. Think of what He can do, and how He delights to hear the prayers of His redeemed people. Think of your place and privilege in Christ, and expect great things!” ~Andrew Murray

What If God Took Over?

What are the areas of your life where you are still resisting the Lordship of Jesus Christ? Identify them, confess them, and then surrender them to the power of the cross by asking Jesus to help your unbelief.