This is a devotional with my thoughts added to verses from the Bible. I highly encourage you to dig into the word with your own thoughts. The Daily Devotion series is one way to do this. However, I know that sometimes we want to read other people’s ideas about Bible passages, so I am starting the Everyday series. I hope and pray that these posts will draw you nearer to Jesus.
DAY 1–Remember to pray before you begin.
Mark 6:45-52 Walking on Water
Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat, and to go ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he himself sent the multitude away. After he had taken leave of them, he went up the mountain to pray. When evening had come, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and he was alone on the land. Seeing them distressed in rowing, for the wind was contrary to them, about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea, and he would have passed by them, but they, when they saw him walking on the sea, supposed that it was a ghost, and cried out; for they all saw him, and were troubled. But he immediately spoke with them, and said to them, “Cheer up! It is I! Don’t be afraid.” He got into the boat with them; and the wind ceased, and they were very amazed among themselves, and marveled; for they hadn’t understood about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.
Crowd dispersal was going to take some power, and the disciples were looking at the feeding as a sign of earthly kingship, just as much as the crowd was. The twelve men were probably full of their own dreams of being Jesus’ honored representatives in the new Jewish kingdom on earth. They probably pictured themselves traveling around to the various provinces of the new kingdom and performing miracles as the people followed them with worshipful gazes. The irony is that if the disciples had been in power at that moment, they would most likely have become the new Pharisees imposing their will upon others. Jesus wanted to separate the disciples from the crowd and the potential for becoming sidetracked into dreams of glory, so He sent them off in the boat. After they were gone, Jesus dismissed the crowd. Then Jesus finally had time alone with His Father, which is what He had been desiring since John died.
Did Jesus want this time alone because He needed comfort for His grief? Probably, but He would not have been completely devastated because He knew that He and John would be reunited someday. Death is the great dividing line between believers and non-believers. The grave truly is the end for those whose loved ones have denied God access to their lives. However, families who share a love for Jesus can face death with peace and confidence. They know that this is temporary separation, not forever. There are tears, but there is also joy because Jesus will someday break the power of the grave for all of His followers. In some ways, John the Baptist’s death may have brought greater determination into the heart of the Savior. He would have known that John’s only hope was if Jesus carried out His mission to the end. John had died trusting in his Savior. Jesus would die to honor that trust and the faith of everyone who had looked forward in faith to the coming of the Messiah from Adam to Abraham to the twelve men who had been sent off alone for their own good. Jesus would die to honor their trust in Him and the faith of all future believers.
The death of John the Baptist signaled a new phase in the Messiah’s earthly ministry. Jesus needed communion with His Father before He began preparing His disciples to face His own death on the cross. We should follow Jesus in this example. If the Messiah needed time with His Father before launching out on something new, how much more do we weak sinners need to commune with God? How arrogant to think that we can step out in new ventures without first spending time speaking to God about the new situations that we are about to face. When we are faced with a major decision, a devastating loss, or a great transition in our lives, our first thought should be to find time alone to speak with God about our past, present, and future.
Jesus stayed on the mountain praying until the fourth watch, which was between 3:00 and 6:00, probably shortly before dawn. The disciples had left when it was near evening probably about 5:00. Thus, they had been out on the lake for about 10-12 hours. In a way, this was their alone time. At first, they may have taken their time. They were tired from their long days of service to the crowds. After a while, some of them probably slept while others rowed, and then they might have exchanged places. As they rowed lazily, they may have talked among themselves about the miracle of the day and maybe compared their experiences as apostles. Did they worry about how Jesus was going to reconnect with them on the other side of the lake? Did they think that they were going to have to go back to get Him? Or were they so trusting of Jesus or conversely, so focused on self that they did not even think of Jesus?
Sometime about 2:30 in the morning or so, the wind began to rise, and the waves began to reach higher and higher as the sea grew too rough for even the most experienced sailors to handle. By this point, all the disciples were alert and exerting all their effort rowing against the waves as they attempted to reach safety on the shore.
Just as the crowd had been able to look down from the hills and watch Jesus and His disciples approach, so Jesus could see the disciples’ boat from His own vantage point. The moon must have been out for Him to see them clearly on the lake. The wind had risen, and it was obvious that they were not as far along as they should have been. Jesus began walking on the water to them. When He first appeared, the disciples did not recognize Him and viewed Him as a threat. How like the disciples we can be! Often when God enters our trying situations to work out a solution for us, we do not trust Him to resolve our problems. We view His interventions with suspicion and only tentatively follow the path that He lays out for us to follow. We try to grip our oars more firmly and row more diligently under our own power rather than laying our oars down and reaching out to the only One who can say “Peace. Be still.”
The wind stopped when Jesus boarded the boat. The disciples had not understood the power that Jesus had used to multiply the food, so they were still incredulous that He had walked on water. They had not yet come to terms with Jesus the man also being Jesus the Son of God. They knew Him intimately. They were with Him as He sweated, ate, went to the bathroom, got dirty and smelly, had aches and pains, bled, and maybe even spit on the ground. They KNEW He was human. He touched them and John, at least, had laid His head on Jesus. However, knowing that Jesus was human was not enough. They also had to learn to know that Jesus was also divine. This knowledge would not fully occur until His resurrection. They might have had evidence of Jesus’ deity previously, but their hardened hearts were still set on the world, and that caused their minds to be closed to other possibilities.
Nowadays, we tend to have the opposite problem. We know Jesus as God, but we doubt His understanding of our human needs and fears. We limit Jesus to heaven and do not realize that He is intimately involved in our sweaty, dirty painful lives. On the other hand, we share the disciples’ tendency to limit Jesus by focusing on the worldly power they expected Him to have in their lives. Their short-sightedness is our problem also. Too often, we are so focused on the limits of the world that we do not see the possibilities that God is holding out to us. We need to pray that God will open our eyes and ears and hearts to the paths that God wants us to travel.
DAY 2–Remember to pray before you begin.
Mark 6:53-56 The Fringe of His Garment
When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret, and moored to the shore. When they had come out of the boat, immediately the people recognized him, and ran around that whole region, and began to bring those who were sick, on their mats, to where they heard he was. Wherever he entered, into villages, or into cities, or into the country, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might just touch the fringe of his garment; and as many as touched him were made well.
The disciples and Jesus came to shore at Gennesaret. This passage is one place where Peter’s voice really comes through in Mark’s account with the simple statement that they moored to the shore. The disciples did not bring the boat all the way onto the land, nor did they tie it to a dock. Instead, the boat stayed out in the water while a rope or ropes secured it to something on the land. The sailor in Peter would have naturally remembered this detail and passed the information on as he told and retold stories about his Master.
Jesus had a combination traveling ministry of walking and traveling by boat. In some ways, His boat ministry was similar to the missionaries who served the tribes along the Amazon River. Those missionaries were following in Jesus’ footsteps as they stopped and moored their boats before bringing much needed medical assistance and spiritual instruction to the animistic tribes along the river. Why do I bring this up? To remind you that Jesus’ ministry was an example for us to follow and that He experienced the same kinds of problems and hardships that we do when we attempt to serve Him. There must have been many instances where Jesus got His legs wet jumping into the sea to get out of the boat before wading to shore. In all likelihood, Jesus also helped with the rowing or maneuvering the sails. Too often we think of Jesus as the miracle worker walking on water, but forget that usually, He traveled as a common man trudging along dusty roads becoming tired and thirsty, or sweating as His tired muscles rowed a boat on the water.
Jesus and the disciples did not stay only in Gennesaret but traveled to villages, cities, and the countryside in the area. The sick were laid out in marketplaces so that they would not be missed when Jesus passed by. These hopeful seekers were not disappointed. The Bible promises us that if we come to Jesus, we will not be disappointed either. “But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 4:29). Jesus called for those who were burdened and heavy-laden to come to Him for rest. Unfortunately, too often we attempt to find rest in mindless videos or mind-numbing games. Instead of searching for relief from stress in escapist activities, Jesus invites us to come to Him for rest and healing, just as the people of Gennesaret did.
Jesus placed himself so that He was accessible to the people who needed Him. Too often we get stuck in one place far away from those who could benefit from our aid. We need to open ourselves up to the possibility that Jesus wants us to change our routines and habits in order to be more available to people in need. We need to look around our community to see if there is something that God is asking us to do near our home and then take the necessary steps to be available where we see the needs. There can be plenty of joy and excitement in serving Jesus where He has placed us if we open our eyes to the opportunities that God has given us to work for others. Whether near home or in faraway lands, God has openings for those who have a willingness to follow where He leads them.
These were the rock star days. Jesus was recognized by strangers who had never seen Him before. Most of the population had heard tales of the nomadic rabbi who traveled from place to place by boat with his band of twelve men. His reputation had grown with each new story of His miraculous works and healing words. The first thought that came to every person’s mind in the Gennesaret area upon hearing about the arrival of the young rabbi and His followers was that this was a chance to be cured of their problems. The passage says that just touching the fringe of Jesus’ garment healed the people. Usually, when Christians think of someone being healed by touching Jesus’ garment, they think of the woman healed from bleeding when Jesus was on His way to Jairus’ house (Luke 8:43-48), but this passage tells us that other people were cured of their ailments in this way. We know from the lessons of the other story that it was the faith of the people of Gennesaret that allowed for successful healing from touching clothing, not any miraculous divinity clinging to Jesus’ robes like pixie dust. It is likely that these people had previously been told of the story of the woman healed of an issue of blood and gained faith from her actions. Do you think that Jesus may have called attention to her restoration not just so that she could receive mental healing but also so that others might hear and have increased faith? More importantly, could your choices to act in faith encourage others to trust Jesus?
DAY 3–Remember to pray before you begin.
Mark 7:1-7 Wash your hands!
Then the Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered together to him, having come from Jerusalem. Now when they saw some of his disciples eating bread with defiled, that is unwashed, hands, they found fault. (For the Pharisees and all the Jews, don’t eat unless they wash their hands and forearms, holding to the tradition of the elders. They don’t eat when they come from the marketplace unless they bathe themselves, and there are many other things, which they have received to hold to: washings of cups, pitchers, bronze vessels, and couches.) The Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why don’t your disciples walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with unwashed hands?” He answered them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
Rabbis from ages past had invented a variety of regulations to surround and protect God’s word. Unfortunately, their descendants had elevated those rules above the words of God. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day had not invented most of the rules that they now revered. However, they had added even more new regulations to their old traditions. They were following the well-worn path of other worldly groups throughout the ages. When an organization or activity begins, it is full of possibilities and open to various styles, but the organizers must pick one style to fit their present needs. At the beginning, it is easy to change to a new organizational design as the group’s needs evolve; however, as time passes, people begin to revere the original style as a holy tradition that should not be modified by later innovations. Satan has frequently taken advantage of this aspect of human nature. The first rabbi who added his opinion to God’s word never once considered that he was paving the way for the rejection of the Messiah, nor did the next rabbi and the next rabbi. However, the end result of all these layers of tradition was to steadily lead people away from God and His word so that their descendants had learned to revere men’s traditions above God’s law. It is ironic that the Pharisees had reached the point where they were criticizing God Himself for not following the rabbis’ rules. The very God they claimed to worship was with them, and they were attacking Him for not being religious enough. Their standard of righteous behavior had diverged so far from the original law of God that it was not recognizable as the same worship system anymore. In some ways, they were committing idolatry all over again, this time with ancestor veneration.
God is not honored by man-made traditions that cause hardships for His children. God wants us to live as freely as possible while still treating each other with love. He is not a God of restrictions, no matter how the devil, the world, and even many Christians depict Him. Instead, He is a God who longs to be with us and who will sit at our side in the slime of our sinfulness to remain close to us. He is a God who innovates and finds new ways around problems. He is not a God of traditions, and He never gets stuck in a round of formal ceremonies. It is imperative that we follow the lead of our God rather than the regulations of humans in our own lives, as well as in our churches.
Unfortunately, Christians have often made the same mistake as the Jews. We have developed traditions around our religion that interfere with understanding God’s word and our relationship with God. We revere some of these traditions as set in stone and act like it would be a betrayal of God to change them. God grant us the wisdom to know when we need to modify our organization, the way we behave in church, and the methods we use to reach people with the gospel. We need to pray for God to expel the extra religious baggage from our lives so that we can focus on the heart of the message that Jesus gave us. We must turn our eyes away from our beloved traditions and toward our loving Savior. It is essential to pray that we will see Jesus more clearly and that God’s truths will shine through the needless traditions that obscure our view of the Son of God.