All that God gives us is 100% free but we don’t tend to trust free offers. If you haven’t come to God as your Saviour, how do you know you can trust Him? In Isaiah 55, the scene is set 700 years before Jesus came. God’s people were exiled but God said he would rescue […]
We are called to serve and not to sin. This week, Donald Trump became the President of the United States. The oath he took talks about ‘leading’. In his leaving speech, Obama spoke about the joy of serving the American people. Jesus led and served – he wanted his disciples to do the same. He […]
In this passage there are 3 examples of unbelief: the unbelieving Pharisees – ‘he is isn’t the Son of God’ the ‘if you can’ man – his only son has an evil spirit and he asks Jesus to heal him the ‘why couldn’t we?’ disciples – if we have weak faith only Jesus can help Lack […]
In this passage, Jesus takes his disciples a long walk up a mountain. He is saying to them as he says to us that anyone who would come after me must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. He is saying there is a cost involved. At the top of this mountain, […]
We come to the point in the book of Mark that we might call ‘the hinge’ – we start to see the two stories of Christ that emerge – the one who does great things becomes the one who suffers. People often think ‘if you could ask God one question what would it be? But if God could ask you […]
We read in Chapter 6 about Jesus feeding 5000 people. In Chapter 8, this happens again but the audience is different – there are more Greeks – 4000 people are present this time. It shows how Jesus’ popularity is spreading to non-Jews and that people are drawn to him. His disciples are faithful but slow […]
… because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Who thinks that the Christian life should be a life of joy and contentment? When did Jesus say we should rejoice? He told his disciples to rejoice that their names were written in heaven – where their identity was in Christ – and that he had saved […]
The Pharisees in this passage were experts on cleanliness. They said Jesus and his disciples were unclean because they did not follow the Pharisees’ traditions. Instead Jesus showed the people that what they really needed was for their hearts to be cleansed.
If we are not careful and we let go of the word of God, tradition can take over like the Pharisees allowed it to. In this passage, we see Jesus explaining that we have a heart problem that can only be cleansed or purified by His substitution and righteousness.
As the disciples encounter Jesus, they are slow to discover who Jesus and the good news he brings. Good news in different ways: for the disciples – Jesus calls them to account and gives them rest for us – he cares for us and prays for us for the lost – he has compassion for […]