Jesus’ first “act” after entering Jerusalem happens the day after His arrival and He comes in with a bang. At this point in the story, Jesus has a significant following. For the three years leading up to this moment He has been laying a foundation for what the Kingdom of God looks like, what His Father cares about and more importantly, who His Father cares about. All the while, the teachers of the law and Pharisees are looking for an opportunity to trap Jesus, to catch Him.
As a church we have been journeying through the book of Mark for the last 40 days of this Lent season. With Easter around the corner, we would like to spend Holy Week reading and rereading the significant moments of Jesus’ last week in the gospel of Mark.
As you read the words of Jesus, you find that there is a consistent theme to His teachings: the heart. Every commandment sinks beneath the surface of action to motivation. Matthew 6:24 falls right in the middle of Jesus’ most famous sermon, the sermon on the mount. A few verses before, Jesus wraps up the heart behind the spiritual disciplines and moves into our relationship with money. Verse 21 says, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Is that true of your life? It’s true of mine.
The family is “society in miniature” and as one author states, is the place where “we first and most deeply learn how to love and be loved, hate and be hated, help and be helped, abuse and be abused.” In a world fraught with sin and its effects, experiencing unity in the family is not a given. And as critical as the family is to the strength of communities, it is not the most important institution of society. The blessing of familial unity bleeds into a greater blessing, one that transcends flesh and blood, time and space, earth and Heaven.
When considering the practice of spiritual disciplines, especially when life feels busy, it can seem like God just wants to add more to our plate. Why? Because He knows something we’ll never fully understand on this side of life: spiritual disciplines aren’t just a means to an end, they’re the path toward Jesus, who is the very sustainer of our breath. We need Jesus like we need to breathe, and these disciplines are the spiritual equivalent of taking a big gulp of the freshest air we could imagine.
Have you ever re-read or re-watched something that maybe you’ve read or watched several times before, but for whatever reason this recent time, you have an “aha moment” that you’ve never had before? Almost as if you’re reading it for the first time again? Recently, a similar thing happened to me while reading the parable of the Good Samaritan – a passage of scripture in Luke 10 that I’ve read many times before.
Right now, at the moment I am writing this, I’m in need of being reminded about God’s faithfulness in my life. This is a moment when I’m uncertain of the future, of what’s coming, of what God has for me, but then I’m reminded of how I got here.
I sat in the home of Maryam*, a young refugee woman from Afghanistan asking her what she needed. The interpreter relayed her response, “This is your first time to my home, it is not right that I should tell you what I need now, it is right that I should serve you.” This is an important antidote to my tendency toward saviorism.
It’s one thing to know what spiritual gifts are, but you might be wondering, why does God give these to us in the first place and how do I know what my gifts are? In the last post, I shared my own journey with spiritual gifts, but this post is intended to take you deeper on your own journey with spiritual gifts.
I wonder what comes to your mind when you hear someone mention “spiritual gifts”? Maybe you grew up in a church tradition that held them in high regard. Maybe you never talked about them in your church. Perhaps you’re wary of their mention because of past abuses you’ve witnessed, or maybe you’re eager to learn and engage with them.