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Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
This week I’m inviting us to consider the amazing truth that God works His purposes in our world through His people whom He invites into strategic action through OPPORTUNITIES which He places before us.
I see a very important pattern in the Bible. God often takes the initiative by inviting a person to join with Him in doing something he or she was not planning to do. Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush is a great example. God set the bush on fire, but did not allow the bush to be consumed while it burned. Not just any bush…it was a bush near enough to Moses that he’d see it and notice it wasn’t being consumed. Then, of course, you remember that as Moses approached it to further investigate this strange sight, a voice seemed to come out of the bush, in his own language, calling him by his name! (Exodus 3)
Think back for a moment in your life. What has God done to get your attention? How have you seen God take the initiative to invite you into something? An unexpected phone call offering you a job? Running into someone you didn’t expect to see in that place, and then they share a need? I invite you to read Mark 1:16-20 and see how four professional fishermen experienced God’s unexpected invitation.
This was not the first time Andrew & Peter, James & John had seen Jesus. John 1 & 2 tell us they’d met before, in fact they’d been with Jesus at a wedding feast when He turned water into wine. Unexpectedly, Jesus came strolling down the shoreline of lake Galilee one morning, all alone as far as we know, and He stopped to chat with them. Mark, as is his writing style, doesn’t give us any details of that conversation, except Jesus’ invitation to “come and follow Me”, and His challenge, “and I will make you fishers of men.”
Don’t rush past that my friends. When God invites you and me to involvement with Him there are always three things going on.
First, God wants to grow our personal relationship with Him. There’s always more we can learn of God.
Second, God wants to refine us more and more into the person HE has designed us to be.
Third, God wants to accomplish something by involving us in what He is doing in our world.
Now think about that a moment as you reflect back on your life and the doors of OPPORTUNITY God has opened before you. If you took a step of faith into the God given opportunity, look closely at how your life changed. Also look to see what you learned about God in the experience? And finally, as you look at what happened as a result of your step of faith with God, can you see how God involved you in what He was wanting to accomplish?
In the case of these four fishermen, Jesus challenged them to leave their nets for a while and spend some extended time with Him so He could teach them some life skills that had nothing to do with catching fish, and everything to do with learning how to be used by God to make a big difference in this world. Let’s follow them, for Mark gives us a remarkable glimpse into what they experienced in the next couple of days. Of course remember, they could easily have said ‘no’ and just put their nets in the boats and headed out into the lake for another day of the same old fishing. How many times have you and I done that? What have we missed by not recognizing God’s invitation or seeing it, but not feeling ready to step out with God?
Notice in verse 21 the five of them went to Capernaum. That would be natural, since it was the main town on Lake Galilee, and very familiar to these men. They went to the Synagogue on Sabbath Saturday and evidently Jesus took the opportunity to read the Torah passage that day and explain it to those present. Notice Mark writes: “The people were amazed at His teaching, because He taught them as one who had authority not as the teachers of the law.” (Mark 1:22). Then as now, too often as people talk about God’s Word, the Bible, they share their opinions, or what they’ve read of someone else’s opinion. Jesus spoke deep, truthful, spiritual insights, explaining God’s Word in a way people really understood and God’s Word penetrated deeply into their souls.
Do you see what Andrew, Peter, John and James were learning?
First that Sabbath should be an important priority. Of course the men could have said, ‘we’re going fishing, we’ll catch up with you Jesus after Synagogue…’. But, you’ll remember Sabbath is God’s idea and He made it a very, very big deal to His people. Consider what God said through His prophet Isaiah “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on My holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way, and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the LORD…” (Isaiah 58:13)
Sabbath was intended by God to be a day of physical rest from our hard labor of the other days. But more importantly, a day of emotional refreshment and finally, most important, a day of spiritual re-alignment with God. Our lives get busy, and Sunday, which is normally our Sabbath, can too easily become so full of activity, none of those things that God intended are our experience. Have you discovered the danger of allowing your Sabbath to become just another day and pushing God out, in your busyness?
Secondly, the four fishermen saw the big difference between someone who reads God’s Word and gives their opinion, and someone who reads it and teaches with the anointing of the Holy Spirit in wisdom and authority.
May I ask what your Bible looks like my friends? Worn, cracked pages, tear stains… or are the pages still stuck together like when you first bought your Bible? Do you have journals filled with what the Holy Spirit has spoken to you as you spend time each day with God reading the Bible and listening to God speak to you? Nothing my friends, nothing, is more valuable than filling your mind and heart with God’s Word. Honestly now, are you spiritually malnourished or well fed?
These four fishermen had been in Synagogue since they were boys. It’s like this was their ‘home Synagogue’ since they lived nearby. But what happened next, I doubt they’d ever seen before. Mark writes: “Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out, ‘What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are – the Holy One of God!” (Mark 1:23,24) Can you feel the hair stand up on the back of your neck? The chill running down your spine? What was happening here? It’s safe to say this man was known to many people in the room, for he evidently was part of the congregation. This was his synagogue too. But on this day, something was very wrong. Can you hear the rumble all through the room as people tried to grasp what they were witnessing?
“Be quiet!” Jesus said sternly, “Come out of him!”
Mark reports this happened next: “The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, ‘What is this? A new teaching and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey Him!” I’d like us to sit right there in that Synagogue for the next 24 hours and ponder.
What have we just witnessed? Why is God’s Word so important and powerful? Why is the Sabbath such a big deal to God? What does this confrontation between the demon influenced man & Jesus mean today? What about the man who is laying on the ground, freed from his bondage? What had taken control of that man? And what were Andrew, Peter, John and James supposed to learn from this unexpected opportunity to watch Jesus command a demonic spirit and free the man from the control of this dark spirit?
Tomorrow we’ll look more closely at this, and similar encounters Jesus had with Satan and his demons, and what we should learn from it. For right now, what has the Holy Spirit teaching you in the last 10 minutes? I urge you to look at Mark 1:16-28 and talk with Jesus right now.
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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