Devos 365

Mark 3:20-3 20  Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. 21  And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.” 22  And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” 23  And he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24  If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25  And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26  And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. 27  But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house. 28  “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29  but whoever blasphemes against

Mark 3:7-1 7  Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea 8  and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. 9  And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, 10  for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. 11  And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” 12  And he strictly ordered them not to make him known. 13  And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. 14  And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach 15  and have authority to cast out demons. 16  He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); 17  James the son of Zebedee and

Mark 3:1-6 1 Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. 2 And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” 4 And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. Mark tells us of a healing that Jesus performs in the synagogue on the Sabbath. This story is interesting for several reasons. Jesus knows that He is being watched by the religious leadership Jesus purposely gathers everyone’s attention so that He can explode their ideas about “working on the Sabbath” Jesus isn’t asked

Psalm 100 1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! 2 Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! 3 Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! 5 For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. It’s a brief 5 verses in this little gem of a praise song. The psalmist assumes that the one who meditates upon these words, or uses them as part of their own worship life already knows the God to whom they are addressed, for He is indeed praiseworthy. So, what does it mean to “know God” and worship Him with understanding? That’s probably a far larger question than it may appear at first blush, for He is at the same time knowable through His Word and the world around us as well as being mysterious and

Mark 2:18-28 18  Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” 19  And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20  The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. 21  No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. 22  And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.” 23  One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 24  And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is n