Mark 3 & 4

***Mark 3***

Once upon a time there was a man named Jesus. Jesus was a nice young man, he took over his father's busines as a carpenter and was supporting his family. Then one day, he goes off to be baptized and then disappears for 40 days. When he comes back he says that he is done being a carpenter and instead chooses to roam the countryside, claiming to be the Son of God. Along the way he gets into fights with all the religious leaders, but he picks up a few followers, mostly common people.

Pretend for a minute this happened today, and Jesus wasn't a carpenter but say he is a farmer. His father died young and Jesus took over the farm to support his mother and younger siblings. And then Jesus leaves it all behind... If we heard that story we might think he was just a little crazy. Which is what the people who knew Jesus prior to his baptism think... he must have gone mad!

Even his family comes to get him. This is interesting... the text says his mother was there, well she is the one who conceived by the Holy Spirit, and who was a witness to all the miracles that lead to his birth and life. And here she is, with his brothers trying to get him to stop what he's doing.

His mother, his brothers and all the people that knew him prior to his baptism were allowing the world to blind them from the truth.

The teachers of the law, those who were supposed to be the closest to God because they knew how to live right, were staring God in the face... he was standing right in front of them, and they said he was the devil. Don't miss the power of this point. One can not be more blind than to have God stand right in front of you and mistake him for Satan.

They were blinded from the truth.

What truth are we allowing the world to blind us from?

Lord, help us see the truth, help us see through your eyes. Amen.


***Mark 4 ***

Yesterday Abiding Grace turned 6 months old. Our first worship service was on August 15th... a morning of many questions. We didn't know how many chairs to set up, which way to set them up, if we would get enough offerings to pay the rent... we had no idea what was going to happen... but we knew God was doing something.

The parable of the Growing Seed is a comforting lesson. The man scatters seeds and leaves them, he can not make the seed turn in to a plant, only God can do that. All the man can do is go about his business while God works. If the man would try to take over and force things, he would just be getting in the way of what God is doing.

The same is true for the gospel. All we can do is plant seeds for God to work with, we can not force anything. I know we all know people that we want a better life for. We want them to know Jesus, we them to come to church, we want them to... All we can do is the plant the seed through love, and we have to trust God to the hard work.

It's hard trusting God to do the work... but when the leaders of Abiding Grace and I look back on the past 6 months and all that we have accomplished. When we see the gymnasium, the space that we wondered if we can afford, packed every Sunday. We realize that only God could do this. We have come a long way, because we have let God lead the way.

God does work. God makes people grow. God makes churches grow. God answers our prayers. And while we should celebrate everything that God does, we can not stop planting seeds. There is much more work to do.