Down in the Valley

Mark 9:14-37

We live for the mountain-top experiences with Jesus Christ. There is nothing greater or more rewarding in this life than to know you have been in the overwhelming presence of the glory of God in power.

Hopefully, in your personal walk with Christ you have known such a time, or many such times. God desires us to experience His presence, even as He ministers to us according to His Word.

For Peter, James, and John, this has obviously been the paramount experience of their lives up to now. Jesus has literally been transfigured in their presence, and they have seen Moses and Elijah with their own eyes – two of the most transcendental figures of the Jewish faith.

In leaving that mountain-top experience behind them, (however long or brief it may have been,) they probably expected to either live on that experience or at least bask in its afterglow for quite some time.

But then they were immediately confronted with what Satan had been doing down in the valley while they were on the top of the mountain.

The disciples who had been left behind while Peter, James and John had been summoned to the peak were engaged in intense Spiritual warfare, and they were in the midst of an embarrassing public defeat. It must have been very disappointing for them to find themselves mired in a mess immediately upon leaving the blessed.

But this is the way ministry often is. A life in Christ is life WITH Christ, and life with Christ is a life of fairly constant conflict because the enemy constantly attacks the unprotected flanks of Jesus’ ministry – (the flanks guarded by people) – and this is where he attempts to bring shame upon Jesus. It often happens in public, and it is designed to have people look at YOU as a means of inviting them to doubt Jesus’ power.

While we may sense despair, and even defeat in these moments of parrying with Satan in our own strength, we must remember Jesus never invited us to follow people, or to look to people for solutions. He invited us to follow Him. Keep the faith!

-Pastor Bill

The Way It Is

Mark 9:1-13

Jesus brings His disciples to the brink of desperation, realizing they have left all to follow Him - and He is going away. And not in a good way.

“What have we done?!” I can imagine them thinking to themselves. Peter even had the audacity, (and the love for Jesus,) to take Jesus aside and rebuke Him for His proclamation He (Jesus,) “would suffer many things, be rejected by the chief priests and scribes and be killed…”

Oh, and by the way, “…and after three days rise again.”

The rising after three days part was the bit the disciples seemed to miss, or even worse dismiss, every time Jesus said it, but particularly this first time.

How could it be that Jesus would even think of allowing Himself to be killed? The fact He said it the way He said it even made it appear as if it were part of some plan that He had, as if it were certain, as if He would make sure it was certain. Is this just the way it is? The way it is going to be? Irreversible? Surely not!

Surely yes.

To offset the news of His soon and certain suffering, Jesus had an amazing revelation to share with His closest followers. Indeed, another promise was made which would seem designed to allay the news of His suffering – and this news was that certain ones of them would see Him in His glory prior to tasting death. After six days Jesus made good on His promise.

Jesus’ transfiguration is one of the greatest, most amazing, most meaningful revelations in all of God’s Word. It must have been impossible to explain, and impossible to even begin to take in all that was being explained in Christ’s transfiguration.

Sometimes people ask if Jesus Himself knew He was God in the flesh. His transfiguration is Exhibit A that He was self-aware of being our All In All. That’s just the way it is. Take it for ALL it means.

-Pastor Bill

Living a Sacrificial Life

Mark 8:22-38

Living sacrificially is not something normal or natural to any extent.

Living sacrificially means living against the grain of human existence, and living against the grain of your own nature.

This probably had something to do with Darwin’s Theory being accepted to any degree when it was first presented. Though it has many tragic flaws and errors, Darwin did present one thought that rang clear as a bell in the human mind: Survival of the fittest.

The whole concept of ‘survival of the fittest’ is a reflection of a ‘me-first’ lifestyle all of us have been living all our days. And so we hear the concept of evolution being based on the “survival of the fittest” and our mind is immediately reminded of all we have ever seen or experienced. People are naturally selfish, only concerned for their own welfare, and certainly chiefly interested in their own survival.

Who would you die for?

This is where Jesus begins to separate us from the crowd of all human existence. Who would you die for – or, better put - is there anyone you would die for? (The list is probably very short.)

The reason is because you don’t know many people worthy of you dying for them. You either don’t know them well enough to make that degree of sacrifice even a consideration or you do know them well enough to know they are not worth it.

Along comes Jesus, and He establishes the minimum requirement for being His follower your sacrificial death. In an era when others are killing people because they refuse to believe in what they command you to believe, Jesus says, “I willingly die for all men that they may believe in Me.”

What could better exemplify Godly influence upon a life than sacrifice? Service? A sense of concern for the eternal rather than the temporal? Not me-first, but you-first – and in every arena of life. This is life in Christ. If you lose your life you will find it.

-Pastor Bill

Consistence

Mark 8:1-21

There is a consistency to the miracles of Christ. They are consistently inconsistent.

They are NOT inconsistent in their wonder, impossibility, glory, or any other way that makes them even remotely possible in the natural realm – but they are never the same – at least in how they are recorded for us.

He we are in the region of the Decapolis, and a great multitude has sought out Jesus for healing. These people have probably heard of Jesus from the demon-possessed man Jesus healed at the Gadarenes.

It is very interesting to think of how it is Jesus healed each one who came to Him. The deaf-mute had been healed (by appearance,) by Jesus sticking His fingers in His ears, and spitting and touching his tongue. Fascinating.

Now we have the feeding of the 4000. The crowd which came to Jesus for healing will now be fed. Would it be as it was in the feeding of the 5000?

Here we learn an important lesson about serving Jesus. Under similar circumstances, we are very much inclined to “do things as we did them before.” After all, what worked previously, (especially if it worked wonderfully,) is going to work again – isn’t it?

But when we read carefully, we see that is NOT how Jesus performed ministry, and so we should stop thinking the way we are most inclined to think about it.

It becomes obvious with practice ministry is meant to be performed under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and that each ministry experience, no matter how similar to a previous ministry experience – is unique.

How would you respond to Jesus telling you to feed 4000? Would you have it down now, understanding it would go down exactly as it had been with the 5000? (I know that’s how I would think about it.) Where can we find 5 loaves and two fish? Strangely, wonderfully, though the circumstances were SO similar, the miracle was completely different in its carrying-out.

-Pastor Bill