Category Archives: Jesus

Show Us The Father — Everything We Need, True Life!

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Today is Mark 10:1-31.

A rich young man ran up to Jesus as He set out on a journey one day. Although the man had everything he could ever need, he knew he was missing something.

He asked Jesus a question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus told him. “You know the commandments.” This was a true statement. A Jewish man of Jesus’s time would have memorized them, but Jesus began to list them off to the rich young man. The man pointed out to Jesus, “all these I have kept from my youth.”

Then it seems that Jesus switches gears, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor…” However, Jesus pointed out the greatest commandment that the man had missed — The Shema: 

“And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭22‬:‭37‬-‭38‬ ‭ESV‬‬

As a Jewish man, he had customarily repeated this verse twice a day, everyday. Jesus was right, the rich young man knew te commands, BUT he had not observed them all. He loved his wealth more than God, Himself.

Jesus offered him the opportunity to follow Him, the very God who gave the life the rich young man desired. But he “went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”

The disciples observed the interaction. Afterwards, Peter said something that should be the prayer of our heart, “See, we have left everything and followed you.”

God wants all of us! Total surrender!

When He is all we seek, we will find Him to be all we need!

Whatever we give up, Jesus said we will receive back “a hundredfold” of His provision. And we will also receive the one thing the rich young man longed for — “eternal life.”

Knowing Jesus, is Knowing Our Heavenly Father. THIS is Knowing Life! 

“And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
‭‭John‬ ‭17‬:‭3‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Show Us The Father — Pursuer of Our Heart

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Today is Mark 9.

Jesus knows everything. He knows what is in the hearts of every man.

Jesus came upon a great crowd and commotion regarding a boy with an unclean spirit. This boy was mute and self destructive. The boy’s father was desperate for healing for his son.

Jesus could have immediately cast the demon out of the boy and healed him, but instead He asked he fathers a question: “How long has he been like this?” (Verse 21) Again, Jesus knew this. He knew all things. But there was an issue within the father’s heart that Jesus wanted to address.

The father said, “If you can do anything have compassion on us and help us.” (verse 22) What was in the father’s heart came out of his mouth…unbelief. Jesus addressed this, “If you can! All things are possible for one who believes.” (Verse 23)

The father needed to see his true need. It wasn’t his son, it was his unbelieving heart. He spoke a prayer, “I believe, help my unbelief!”

Jesus then cast out the demon and the boy was healed.

Our Heavenly Father desires our hearts to be entirely, totally, completely His! He works in our circumstances to show us what is inside of them. He is willing to take the time to get to the heart of the matter in our lives.

Unbelief was separating this father from His Heavenly Father. Jesus addressed the issue and worked a miracle for the man.

A simple prayer by a desperate man brought healing and wholeness not only to his son, but to his own heart. When we sense the Holy Spirit asking us a question, “How long have you been like this?” We stand on the precipice of freedom. If we choose to humble ourselves, confess our sin, and say, “I believe in You Jesus! Help me!”

Show Us The Father — Abundant Provider,

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Today is Mark 8.

In Jesus, there is abundance for every need. Two times the crowds were in need for physical food and Jesus provided. What was it that Jesus used to provide the need? It was ALL the disciples had. Jesus took what was given to Him, a few loaves and fish. He not only provided a meal for a crowd, but leftovers that displayed His generous provision.

Our Heavenly Father is very generous in His provision for us! He is the same today as He was yesterday, and He will be the same forever. We can come to Him with what we have, all of us. He will work the miraculous in what we offer up to Him with generous abundance!

Show Us The Father — One on One

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Today is Mark 7.

“After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus…” verse 33

I love how Jesus took time for the individual. The man who was deaf and could not speak could have been healed in a manner of seconds with Jesus’s touch, but Jesus took him aside. He gave the man one on one attention.

Jesus is personal. He is all about connecting with “the one” i.e. you and me. He loves to take us aside, away from the crowd, to be with Him in a deep, personal, and intimate relationship.

Jesus displayed the desire of Our Heavenly Father. He created us for intimacy with Him. We have been designed for a relationship that is connected to Him in oneness with Him. He in us and us in Him. 

“This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.”
‭‭1 John‬ ‭4‬:‭13‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Show Us The Father — Compassionate

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“When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.”
‭‭Mark‬ ‭6‬:‭34‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Today is Mark 6:30-56.

Jesus told His disciples to “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” They had been very busy ministering to people and sharing the Good News. So much so that they hadn’t even had time to take care of the basics, such as eating and rest.

When they went a way in the boat and arrived at the resting place, the crowds came. Jesus looked at the “great crowd, and he had compassion on them…” He was moved by their needs. His will for them was good and He saw the hurts, the brokenness, the spiritual hunger. They were like “sheep without a shepherd.” They needed Him to keep them, to care for them, to meet their needs.

Jesus “began to teach them many things.” He met their spiritual hunger with spiritual food. Then He worked a great miracle providing physical food to meet their physical need. Jesus displayed to us compassion!

Our Heavenly Father is compassionate! He sees our needs, including our greatest one, to be connected to Him in a relationship. He knows that apart from Him, we will experience nothing but death, darkness, and destruction. He cares very much about not only our physical needs, but our spiritual needs as well.

How good it is to know that Our Heavenly Father is moved by our needs of Him! He loves us with great compassion!

Show Us The Father — Faithful

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Today’s reading is Mark :1-29.

Jesus went to His hometown. As He was teaching, the people who heard Him had a hard time looking at Jesus as anything more than “the carpenter’s son.” Even though He spoke with wisdom, and did mighty works. They were in “unbelief.” Jesus “marveled” at it. But this did not deter Jesus from continuing His mission that God had sent Him to do. He continued to go about the villages teaching. Jesus was faithful! He displayed the faithfulness of His Heavenly Father.

I know I have acted like the people of Jesus’s hometown a time or two in my life. I heard the Word of Wisdom, and I knew that God did mighty works, Yet I stood in unbelief. I am thankful that God has been faithful to me. He continued to call to me. He continued to draw me to Himself.

The Apostle Paul described the faithfulness of God like this:

“if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.”
‭‭2 Timothy‬ ‭2‬:‭13‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Jesus “could do no mighty works there…” because of their unbelief. His desire is to do mighty works in our lives. This is why He faithfully pursues us. May we repent of our unbelief and surrender to Him our faithful God!

Show Us The Father — The Personal God

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““You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ””
‭‭Mark‬ ‭5‬:‭31‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Jesus was surrounded by crowds of people, but He still saw the needs of the one. One man in a crowd needed Jesus to heal his dying daughter. Jesus’s response is to head towards that man’s, Jairus, home to pray for his little girl.

As they walk through the crowd where people were pressing up against Jesus on all sides, one woman was healed in a very personal way. Jesus stopped to address her individually.

You and I are only one in 8 billion on this planet. There are so many others pressing in around Jesus. Yet He stops for the one, you/ me.

So many around us but He comes to our home of our hearts and raises the dead within us.

Jesus shows us a Heavenly Father who is personal. He is for each of us one on one. He wants intimate relationship with each of us. Jesus went to the cross, died and rose again to extend the invitation that our Heavenly Father desires for us to receive. He desires for us to come. Will we respond to His personal invitation for our time to be one on one with Him?

Show Us The Father — Restorer of Mental Health

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Today is Mark 5:1-20.

Today’s reading is the account of a man possessed by demons, a whole legion of them. No matter what was tried he could not be subdued.

He ran around in a graveyard naked. He beat up anyone who tried to help him. “He was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.” But deep within him, he wanted to be free. “..when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him.”

Jesus did the impossible. He cast the demons out of the man. He set the man free! The people of the nearby city heard of what had happened. 

“And they came to Jesus and saw the demon possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there , clothed and in his right mind…” (verse 15)

Our Heavenly Father still sets the captives free and He is able to restore a person to “his right mind…” Depression, anxiety, anger issues, compulsions, addictions,etc. are not too big for Him!

In our society, it is almost taboo to make such a statement. But I can confidently say that I have experienced going from torment of mind to sitting close to Jesus and “in my right mind.” He set me free! He is not a respecter of persons. What He did for the demoniac in the Bible, and for me in a small Missouri town. He will do for you!

Jesus showed us the Father who restores and heals the troubled mind when He stepped out of the boat at Gerasenes.

He is able to show us that same God as we allow Him to step into our lives! The demoniac ran up to Jesus. May we run to Him as well!

Show Us The Father — He is Sovereign

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Today is Mark 4:30-41.

Circumstances can loom intimidating and large. In today’s passage the disciples found themselves in a circumstance they knew was bigger than them, “a great windstorm” and “waves… breaking the boat” they were in. When they woke Jesus who was asleep in the oat, they asked Him a question that I’m sure I have asked God before, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Or in my words it may have sounded like, “God, don’t you care…?”

Then Jesus speaks, “Peace! Be still!”

“Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” These are the questions that Jesus asks as they sat in the boat in the “great calm.”

Every day as they walked with Jesus, the disciples saw Him perform miracles, speak with wisdom like no one else, heal, cast out demons, etc. He displayed that He indeed is Lord, and sovereign over all. He is supreme in power and dominion.

In my life, God has come through, time after time after time. Why would I be afraid and have no faith? If Jesus displayed His sovereignty on the boat that day with His disciples, He has not changed.

Jesus shows me my Heavenly Father. My God is Sovereign over the storms that may blow in my life. The safest place to be in a time of storms and uncertainty is in the boat with Jesus! He alone has the power to say, “Peace! Be Still!” And bring calmness in uncertainty! He is in control. He is Sovereign and my sovereign God loves me.

How can I lose?

Show Us The Father — The Sower of the Word

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Today is Mark 4:1-20.

“The sower sows the word.” (Verse 14)

I’ve planted a few gardens. The idea behind a garden is to plant a seed that will produce ALOT. When I put a seed in the ground, I am desiring to see the good vegetables to come after time of tending the seeds and the plants they will yield.

Our Heavenly Father has given us the seed of His Word. He sows this seed within our spiritual heart. His desire is to see the good fruit that it will bear in our lives.

The seed of the Word is “living and active.” It is good seed. It will produce what it was sent to produce. However, if fruit is not produced, the issue isn’t the seed. The issue is the condition of the soil the seed fell upon.

Simply put, what is the condition of your spiritual heart. Is it hard and unyielding. Is it filled with rocks (sin) that keep the Word from taking root. Is it lined with thorny plants “the cares of the world and deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things” that “chokes the Word, and proves unfruitful.” Or is your heart good soil that hears the Word and accepts it bearing fruit.

Our Heavenly Father is sending forth His Word. He desires for us to receive it and enjoy the good fruit it produces in our lives. Not just a little of the good fruit, but a lot! His desire is for us to receive it by hearing it and accepting it. He is the Sower of good seeds. Will we receive?