At church yesterday, our pastor gave a sermon called 'The Nobody Who Became Somebody' that really spoke to me. (You can listen to it here under encounters with Christ.) The scripture the sermon revolves around is Mark 5:21-34. The rest of this post will be bullet points of things I learned.
- Jesus made this nobody somebody without even including her name in the Bible. For people to talk about her they have to tell her story, to recount the miracle Jesus worked in her, to remember the power of God before both people know who they are talking about!
- This women had the worst disease ever because she was constantly bleeding. When a woman was bleeding she was unclean and therefore all her life this woman couldn't have a normal marriage, go to the temple to pray, be alone with someone, and was shunned in public. And also, it was incurable.
- In the passage in says that she spent all she had on doctors but only got worse. I feel like this is a reminder that nothing good will come from trying to do the impossible without the power of God.
- This women spent every penny trying to find a cure for her physical disease but many people spend all the have on their soul disease. They buy stuff, go to social events, date/remarry ect, only to discover their disease is incurable. Thankfully we know that only Jesus can heal the incurable. (Cool thing about this is that one of God's names is the Great Physician!) In regard to this woman, her illness was incurable but her spirit was indomitable.
- This women hadn't met nor seen Jesus until the same day she slipped into the crowd to touch his cloak, she had only heard about Him. How can a woman who has only heard about Jesus have enough faith in Him to know that His clothes will heal her while I, who know Him, have trouble putting my full faith in Him with small things? It's incredible!
- Again, this women heard about Jesus. This woman who was publicly shunned had heard enough about Jesus to have so much faith in Him. Jesus was being talked about! Back then the name of Jesus effected so many, why aren't we saying it now?
- Ways to bring up Jesus at any conceivable time would be at any lull or connecting point in a conversation to tell something you've read, talk about what great things God's doing for a missionary, organization, in a true book or movie, ect. but be excited about it and tell it like that. Just add it normally to a conversation but with excitement. There will never be need for apologetic build up or anything before, just fit Jesus into your conversations. There is no time or place where it would be bad for a person to hear the name of Jesus.
- When she touched His clothes, Jesus felt power go out of Him. Ministering cost Him something yet He was willing to do them for us! And when He felt that, He found her and gave her His full attention, all of Himself, and I'm sure she'll never forget when Jesus was focused on her.
So, I found so much of this extremely convicting but chose a couple things to really think about this week. One, focus on faith. I'm constantly doubting whether I'm really hearing God's voice or if God will do something when I want Him to. Also, I'm not talking about Jesus as much as He deserves to be talked about! So my focuses for the week are:
- When I hear God speaking to me, I will immediately go do what He asks so I won't have time to start doubting.
- I will try to talk Jesus in almost every conversation I have so that it becomes habit.
Towards the end of last school year, I really started to focus on not judging people, and it was helping a lot! Not to the point where I actually didn't judge but when I started to, I could catch myself and stop pretty early on. What this resulted in was less judgement (obviously:)), less gossip, and better relationships with other people. Unfortunately, I stopped focusing so much on it over the summer and ending up doing a little backsliding, which I didn't realize until my quiet time about 10 minutes ago when I read Romans 2:1,
You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.
It made me think a lot because while I might not sin in exactly the same way, I do sin, and because of that, the very action judging them is a sin. I knew that before but needed the reminder. Thank you God! :)
One way thing that causes me to judge in cursing. When someone curses, my opinion of them automatically, and often subconsciously, goes down. However, I have one friend that I really like but she isn't a Christian and has absolutely no interest in any kind of faith. She does different thing I don't agree with (because I'm looking through Bible eyes), including curse. But often, instead of judging her when she says things, I judge the word she's just said. And if I can do this with her cursing, why can't I do it with everyone and every sin.
What I'm not saying is that we should ignore that a certain person is doing something. We shouldn't. We need to keep in mind the ways different people are challenged so that we can be there for them if God ever asks us to, or share of verse we're feeling led to share with them. What we shouldn't do is hold the sin against them. After all, if everyone held each others sin against them and let it get in the way of relationships, we would have no close friends. (That said, pick your close friends wisely.)
So, in conclusion, don't judge people, judge actions. Don't see someone you don't want to be like, see something you don't want to do. And always be willing to encourage others if you feel God is calling you to do so.
I just finished reading the Parable of the Sower from Mark 4 and got some really cool thoughts about it so I had to blog and expand on them before they went out of my head. So anyway, while I was reading I was thinking about how even though I know the "Good News," I still don't know a fraction of what God wants to teach me so not all of my heart is 'good soil.' That made me think about how to make good soil and I think it's really cool.
When you want to plant a garden you make sure the soil is good first. This consists of three main steps: water, weed, fertilize.
Weed, consists of finding the sin in you heart and rooting it out (read this post for a more detailed, whimsical description.) Obviously it is necessary to do this before you fertilize.
Fertilizing is like like vitamins for the ground, it helps the soil become rich or able to produce good crops. There are many different ways we can fertilize are heart, but the ones that come to mind immediately are reading the Bible, praying, and fellowship. However, there is another way to fertilize that doesn't come in the usual package, compost. Compost is pretty much recycling gross garbage that is actually full of nutrients for your soil. You put certain kinds of trash in a bin and mix it up and it gets super hot and you have to stir it around with a shovel for weeks but when it's done, you never could never tell it was the garbage for a bit ago. For us, we can compost bad relationships, experiences, choices, ect. For a while it gets really tough, burning hot and shifting emotions, but in the end, the lessons He teaches us are so amazing it's hard to believe they came from the bad parts of your life!
Water isn't really a step that Has an order. You just make sure you water before and after you do anything else. You water before you weed so the ground is soft and the weeds will come up easier so since Jesus is the Living Water, you invite Him in before you 'weed' so it's less painful and ask Him to stay afterwards to give the new, weed free soil a good start! But in the end, if you don't continually water, all the good you've grown will die. In the same way, when we don't spend time in the presence of JC, our relationship dies and becomes religion. Ick!
So, now concludes my new realization about the parable of the sower. Thanks for reading! :)
Lately I've been wondering what exactly Lord of Hosts means. I realize it's a name of God but I haven't really understood why He is the Lord of Hosts. A guy I met recently explained this way, "Because Jesus lives in us, we are the host. God lives in each of His followers therefore He's the Lord of hosts." (that is obviously not verbatim but whatever :)) But my study Bible told me that the Lord of Hosts meant that God was the ruler over many, as in Lord=God and Hosts=Angels (like in a Heavenly Host). Because of these different explanations that both seemed to make sense, I did some research.
The name 'Lord of Hosts' is translated from 'Jehovah Sabaoth.' Jehovah means God and Sabaoth means armies/hosts therefore when we simply take the words and literally translate, Lord of Hosts means ruler over many armies or fighting forces. However we can also take a look at the name in context.
When we see 'Lord of Hosts' in the Bible (and it is used 250+ times), we see it used mainly in 2 different ways.
1) A person is crying out to the Lord of Hosts. When this happens, the crier is calling for a defender, calling for God to come fight a battle they couldn't win alone.
2) As a name for God after He shows His incredible power.
So, in context, we can see that it shows God a powerful defender. (For specific in text examples go here: http://donotdepart.com/jehovah-sabaoth-the-lord-of-hosts)
In conclusion, the Lord of Hosts is a name of God that highlights His supreme power over all of His creation. While His Hosts may include angels, they are truly all of creation. (So, that guy's explanation isn't Biblically true about the Lord of Hosts because host isn't translated into that meaning but we can use it that way because He is the Living God of the Living Word.)
When I look around me I often think I'm really not that bad. Yeah I mess up but, relatively speaking, I'm much better than the majority of earth's population. I'm am certainly not a despicable person of base character. In fact, I've been told exactly the opposite. And I love hearing that kind of praise!
Unfortunately, all those compliments I receive are not turned into praise to God. I don't immediately thank Him for turning me around and helping me live like JC. Instead, I glow with pride, taking all God's credit. The truth of the matter is that the more God works in my life, the less I feel like I need Him and the more I push Him away. In fact, the moments where I am completely sold out for Jesus are quite fleeting and I often wind up feeling fake. But, I can comfort myself with the fact that I'm not (as I mentioned earlier) a despicable person of base character, though if I truly believe that fact, then I'm a liar.
A popular hymn, Amazing Grace, goes like this, "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me." I've sung this countless times and, in doing so, called myself a wretch. The definition for wretch is a despicable person of base character. As a liar falls into this category, there is no alternative for me, I am or was despicable. And right now I'd go with am.
As fine as I think I am, if I were to go to heaven uncured of sin, it would reveal who I truly am. After all, good and bad are relative terms but perfect is perfect wherever you are, whomever you with.
So, if you ever feel the need to renew your relationship with Jesus, don't rush it but prioritize it so that when it gets tough, your relationship remains #1. I'm trying to take my own advice right now and now know that the best way to start is to say you're sorry.
Lately I've been pushing aside my God time way too much. Because I'm not on my normal schedule there is an endless supply of excuses I can use but mostly I say, "How can I get anything out of this if I don't even want to do it?" Then say a quick prayer asking God to make me want to and push aside the knowledge that what I'm doing is wrong. The other night I was telling my iron sister how sometimes God gives me a certain determination to do something but without I can't do anything. She kinda looked at me funny and a little while later brought the subject up again and simply told me that she didn't think I needed that determination to do stuff. This wasn't what I wanted to hear and unsettled me a little because deep down I was well aware she was right.
I had recognized that my heart wasn't where it should be but didn't want to make any effort to move it so I asked God to do all the work. But, the thing about God is that He never forces us to do anything. He always lets us take the first step and then helps us from there. It's kind of like those pictures where Jesus has His hand out and we just need to reach up about an inch and grab it before He pulls us up. While my heart was in the wrong place, the small movement towards God was able to shift it just a little back to where it belongs!
So, if you are ever acting like me and making excuses to push away your time with God, know that the feeling when you truly go back to Him is so gratifying that you can't fully understand why you were making excuses in the first place!
p.s. This is an awesome example of why it is so great to have an accountability partner to always point you in the right direction!
I've always been confused by the Biblical story in which Jesus curses a fig tree. Last month I read it in Matthew but after reading it again today in Mark I decided it was time for some investigation. (The story is found in Matthew 21:18-22 and Mark 11:12-14; 11:20-24.)
Now, this story seems slightly disturbing in the sense that Jesus killed someone else's fig tree because it didn't have any fruit out of season. Thankfully, that statement is false. The fig tree was probably growing on the side of the road which was not uncommon in that time, just as it was not uncommon to go get fruit from a tree growing on the side of the road. I've drawn this conclusion because Peter, who often rebuked Jesus, didn't do so. You would think that if Jesus went a killed someone else's fig tree, Peter would feel the need to speak up. As for the no fruit out of season, my discovery is below.
After reading several commentaries that popped up on google, I noticed that they all mentioned that the fig tree had leaves and in Palestine, the figs show up before the leaves. I'm not sure if this is true because, despite my efforts, I couldn't manage to find any reports on Palestinian figs that weren't christian based. Plus, my study Bible said leaves and fruit appear about the same time. Because of this, I didn't feel overly confident about the relationship between figs and fig leaves. Thankfully I ended up running across something that made much more sense anyway. And it was written by a fig farmer! (You can find what he wrote here if you'd like but I will summarize below.)
There is such thing as a early fig, as in months early. It's called a berba. Most likely that is what Jesus went to look for. (After all, Peter didn't stop Him from looking for figs out of season!:)) But when Jesus went to check it wasn't just that He didn't see any ripe figs, He didn't see any fruit at all, ripe or unripe. Figs are supposed to have 1 to 2 fruits behind each leaf and the fruit should have at least been starting to grow! But it wasn't. This shows that the fig tree wasn't lacking fruit out of season, it was lacking fruit period. An unproductive fig tree on the side of the road doesn't help anyone anyway.
So now that we have the disturbing part of this story taken care of, lets move onto why. The main reason is the lesson Jesus taught from the story. He had no doubt whatsoever that the fig tree would die and wasn't the least surprised to that it withered. He used this as a teaching moment to show the disciples that when you believe in your heart that what you've said will come to pass through God, it will.
In my study Bible I read something else that I liked a lot. It basically said that because the tree had so many leaves it gave you the impression it would bear lots of fruit but it really had none. This could symbolize the hypocrisy of those who seem to be bearing lots of fruit but are, in fact, bearing none.
And now my conclusion on Jesus cursing the fig tree draws to a close.
