Mark
We can’t always buy what we truly need. Deep down in our soul, we know this. Happiness cannot be bought; yet most of us sure try from time to time. Peace of mind cannot be bought, either. Friends cannot be bought. Eternal life cannot be bought. Relationship with God
Mark
Jesus knows. There are times where these are the scariest words I could ever hear. Maybe you’ve had similar moments. These words usually pop into my head about 5 seconds after I’ve made the choice to choose sin over righteousness. My conscience yells at me, reminding me that
Mark
Big faith frequently comes from unexpected sources. I love discovering huge reservoirs of faith in surprising locales. Full disclosure: I love finding huge reservoirs of anything good in unexpected places. As a math teacher, I love finding students who have an incredible capacity for doing math successfully but have never
Mark
Sometimes life boils down to a simple risk versus reward analysis. If you see someone walking by who needs help, are you willing to step out of your comfort for the reward of being the hands and feet of God? If you see someone who looks like they are having
Mark
Attention to detail matters. One of the fundamental tenets I use when judging another person is this: If I cannot trust you in the small things, then I certainly won’t trust you with anything that matters to me. For example, if you can’t be trusted to genuinely stop
Mark
It is interesting how people react to a supernatural event. Weird things happen. Maybe they don’t happen every day, but weird things happen. You might encounter one significant hard-to-explain event. You might also encounter a string of tiny events that individually wouldn’t be worth noting but
Mark
Sin is destructive. Evil is destructive. Certainly, sin and evil have other dynamics and descriptors that can be added to their definition, but they are always destructive. One of the earliest – and in my opinion best – definitions of sin is that which breaks relationship. Sin breaks relationship with one another.
Mark
Legion. We understand the word, but we don’t necessarily understand its true historical context. For most people, legion just means many. For the Romans, a legion meant at least 5,000 people and frequently as many as 6,000. Furthermore, that only describes the fighting force; it wouldn’t
Mark
Getting what we need is seldom as easy as it looks. A good education takes lots of consistent work. Raising a good family takes an enormous amount of continued effort. Thriving in a good marriage takes regular intentional action. All these are good, and the work required should be satisfying
Mark
Jesus frequently adopts a mind-blowing perspective. He voluntarily allowed Himself to be baptized by a man wearing camel hair and eating locusts. Jesus redefined family, calling those around Him His mother and brothers. Jesus willingly confronted the powerful elite in Hebrew society. Jesus fell asleep when a storm threatened
Mark
Imagine feeling the rebuke of Jesus upon your life. For most Christians, we would categorize it as a low spot in life. Who wants to disappoint the Son of God? Yesterday, the story ended with the disciples being so afraid they accuse Jesus of not caring. Said like this, it
Mark
Genuinely following Jesus is not always easy. With respect to today’s passage, a bit of discomfort is in order. Jesus does something here that should make the uninitiated stop and think. Before getting to that, it is important to understand a history lesson. The Sea of Galilee is notorious