Scribes, Engagements, and Immediacy

As of late I have been making my way through the gospel of Mark. It has been a long while since I actually sat down with a gospel account. I normally get lost in the old testament somewhere being like " Jews threw huge parties, we should do that" or like " Nehemiah prayed and fasted for three months and then got the king to accept the impossible, maybe in doing that we can make the impossible plausable." I find myself fascinated by jewish culture or something to that end but when I finished reading through 1st kings, I was like hey it is time to do something different. How bout Look at an account of this Jesus character who was the fullfilment and the energy that made all this passion and power happen. So here I find myself on a beautiful sunny day in early march, somewhere in the middle of Mark.

There have been mainly three things that have caught my eye that I want to try and note on real quick...well, maybe real quick.

The first one being scribes. All thoughout the gospel account of Mark I see people referred to as scribes who I at least see as should being able to realize this Jesus character is the son of God , for some reason they don't. I think it boils down to a phrase tozer said " the kingdom of God does not lie in words buts in its understanding, the true power." I have sat down with this phrase for a while now and thought about what it means along with the whole fact that the writers and historians are literally put next to in association to the pharisees. The reason they are put next to them so many times is because honestly they have all these words but they do not see. And I think and believe that this means for me as a writer to make sure that my words are more than mere words. They need to be meaningful. They need to be honest, and I shouldn't puff up myself. There is a tendancy amoung bloggers to pretend they are doing something but in accuality they are doing nothing. This is no good. That is lying using an artform as a corrupt thing. There are some people that say if Jesus lived in our day he would have a blog. I'm positive he would not. He would acually go do stuff not pretend he was. We need to be super careful not to merely learn for the sake of learning. Learning and knowledge should come in order that action might be taken upon the knowledge.

Second are engagements. I was struck last night as I was going through chapter six of Mark the phrase he includes in I believe chapter three " the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath." Going back to the sixth chapter, Jesus doesn't get a sabbath for a long while because people need to be healed they follow him every where and never has a down moment. But when he can he takes advantage goes to a secluded place and communes with his father being filled to an overflow so He might affect many.But he is interupted by a storm that is brewing out on the sea where his disciples are. So he goes intending to pass by, but he jumps in the boat to help them out. He is not engaged to anything he can be interupted. Can we take a lesson from this? Most certainly. We need to be able to be interupted and go wherever we are needed at a moments notice. If we can't do that we need to somehow do something radical, and trust God.

The third thing is Immediacy. God is a God of immediacy. We are a people of little faith. These two things don't mix. I am reminded in reading through this account of the gospel that if people simply believed, had faith they would be healed they were healed. Bleeding hemorages gone, leprosy gone, all these things that they couldn't cure gone. What happened to that type of faith? I will say that again what happened to that type of faith? I will say it a third time what happend to that type of faith? I have accounts from all over the world of people being healed of their ailments. Yet we don't believe. Why? I do not know. We should though. If you haven't realized it we are in the last days and it is apporaching quickly I see signs and wonders all around me, I see men prophosying and dreaming, I see the gospel taking root in places it has never taken root. I see entire towns fraternities etc. coming to Jesus. I see the works of the devil being defeated. We need to get on the wagon with the rest of the world America. Myself included. We need to be radical and step out in faith. We need to pray more. We need to read our bibles. We need to be interupted. We need to trust this God of immediacy to do what he has said he will do, if we merely believed. As Isiah 45 talks about " I have not spoken in secret, in some dark land"-Jesus Our God does not hide himself unless we as a people do not wish for Him to come and show himself. WAKE UP AND ARISE, LET OUR GOD SHOW HIMSELF. All I can do is pray. And that is what I will do. I will do what I can, but christianity is not an "I" sport it is an all inclusive sport. We are weak when we try and play it alone. Even weaker when we try and play without God on our team.

JG