Flowers at our Condo – 3 degrees outside – 60 days until Spring
Our Post is Inspired by The Holy Spirit.
They watched him closely to see if he would cure him on the sabbath so that they might accuse him. He said to the man with the withered hand, “Come up here before us.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?” But they remained silent. Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart, he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death. Mark 3: 2-6
This has always been one of my favorite readings.
Why you might ask?
You get a clear picture early in Jesus’ ministry, that the Pharisees were not looking to see if Jesus was the Messiah, but to “accuse” Jesus of a wrong to put Him to death.
Chapter three of Mark’s Gospel and the Pharisees are already plotting to put Jesus to death!
Wow!
So, you might ask, why is this reading one of your favorites?
How often in my life have I complained, and sometimes bitterly, that the difficulty I was facing was just too hard.
Why did this have to happen to me, was one of the many questions I would ask myself?
It’s only when I realized that Jesus’s life was filled with difficulties from all sides that I realized that the difficulties YOU and I face, God has ALLOWED in our lives for a reason.
What’s the reason?
‘To bring us closer to God!
If you remember last week’s post you might remember the fourth prayer we introduced in that post.
That prayer was,
“Thank you Father for the difficulties …. Name the difficulty….. You have ALLOWED in my life, I know you will take care of me.”
John 13:3 states that Jesus was, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God,
Consider, in order for Jesus to arrive at this conclusion, Jesus had to grow in this knowledge of being God, and I believe Jesus grew in this knowledge, in part, through the miracles He performed.
But,
in performing the miracle you would think the people who benefited from the miracle would rejoice,
Rejoicing is not mentioned by Mark, what is mentioned is the Pharisees immediately plotting to kill Jesus.
A difficulty for Jesus?
I think so.
What would you call it?
What is also mentioned was Jesus, Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart.
You and I at times have felt the same grieving and anger when someone didn’t acknowledge a good which we had done for them.
What did you do?
Write them off?
Or maybe you said to yourself that you would never help them out again.
We talked about this last week,
When difficulty comes into your life, do you thank God for the difficulty God has ALLOWED into your life, or do you complain?
Complaining is living in the “world.”
Thanking God for the difficulty God has ALLOWED in your life brings you into a deeper relationship with God in the “Spirit world.”
Also consider all the difficulties God has NOT ALLOWED in your life, which is why in our first post we said God has taken care of me, is taking care of me, and therefore it is only reasonable to assume that God will continue to take care of me.
The question I now ask myself is, “Who else but God can I turn to?”
Let’s quickly cover a few of the many difficulties God may have shielded you from, major diseases, injuries, thefts, rape, murder, just to mention a few. You may have encountered some of the above, but not all of the above, and I hope you will also appreciate this is a very short list, we haven’t even scratched the surface.
God is taking care of you and maybe you haven’t appreciated God’s loving care, and are concentrating and complaining about what God Has ALLOWED.
If I am thanking God for the difficulties God has ALLOWED in my life this sets me apart from the rest of the “World” who are complaining and plotting to kill him.
And yes, people are still trying to kill God.
School Prayer, Gone!
Ten Commandments hanging in public places, Gone!
Freedom to worship was denied during the initial phases of the Covid pandemic!
Just as God the Father took care of His Son, so God the Father will take care of you,
When?
Now!
Let’s be clear, no one enjoys difficulties!
Even Jesus at the Mount of Olives asked, “if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done.” Luke 22: 42
Also, remember every difficulty God ALLOWS in your life is to bring you closer to God, this is NOT an initiation rite into a club, this is meant to teach you to trust God, which Jesus confirmed when He said, “Not my will but Yours.”
God wants a relationship!
The way to build a relationship is through difficulties!
Think we’re kidding?
Think about your married life or the raising of your children, both I’m reasonably sure contained difficulties, and when you overcame the difficulty, you grew deeper in your relationship, love, with each other.
I also am not naive, I know full well that many of you have had a rough go of it.
I met many men in the jail who told me their stories and their stories were awful.
But!
After listening to their stories, we asked them to thank God for the difficulty they just mentioned, and thank God for that specific difficulty until they smiled, and when they smiled,
Their life began to change!
How?
Their smile let the Holy Spirit back into their lives!
The choice is clear.
Live in the “world” filled with hate, stress, and fear to mention three
Or,
Live in the “Spirit World” filled with Love, Joy, and Peace.
In case you are thinking living in the “Spirit World” is hard, let us ask you, “Do you think hanging on a Cross with nails driven through your hands and a nail driven through your feet is easy?”
Gail and I have been married for fifty-six years. It wasn’t always easy, we almost went belly up twice, I never want to go through that again, but we worked through it, and now are closer than ever.
Looking back I wouldn’t change a thing.
Once I learned about thanking God for the difficulties God has ALLOWED in my life, my life became so much easier.
Jesus asked the man with the withered hand to stretch it out and be healed, the man had faith in Jesus and did as he was asked.
He was healed!
God took care of that man’s difficulty and will take care of yours.
Stretch out your hand!
We pray you will grow in the Love, Joy, and Peace of the Holy Spirit by growing in Patience, Kindness, Generosity, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control.
Sidebar:
After we wrote last week’s post I was sad we couldn’t say more about the fourth prayer.
I first read today’s gospel and had a completely different initial thought.
The Holy Spirit stopped me and we proceeded to write what you have just read. By the way, we will make fifteen to twenty-five edits to all of our posts before it’s submitted, so I am not suggesting we do it once and then we’re done, and I am thankful for this difficulty because it prolongs our working together and helps me grow in our relationship.
Now, because of this Gospel reading, we have a second opportunity to write more about thanking God for the difficulty God has ALLOWED in our lives.
If I had written about the fourth prayer in the third week which would have been the proper chronological order I learned this prayer in, I wouldn’t have learned what I just learned by our post.
I get pumped because this is what the Prison Ministry was like for me. I turned it over to the Holy Spirit and learned so much more about God by letting the Holy Spirit take over and teach me as we taught the men.
Go figure, a person who hated to write, satan, who was afraid of deadlines, satan, now loves to write, Holy Spirit, and can’t wait until the next Monday to see and learn from the Holy Spirit what we will type next.
God is good!
Life is good!
