MARK 10:18. “And Jesus said unto him, ‘Why callest thou Me good? There is none good but One, that is God.”
“…BUT ONE, THAT IS GOD.” THE PHARISEES AND MARRIAGE: it has always been a way of men to complicate what God’s intention is in a matter. It is clear that God intends marriage to be for life. It is clear that He intends all vows to be kept. It is clear that marriage is to be one man to one woman. The facts are, that not all God’s intentions are kept. His desire is not always fulfilled in any area of life. The standard remains because it is sinless. Sinful man has never, since the fall in Eden, kept all that God intends. THE DISCIPLES AND YOUNG CHILDREN: too often we overlook the value of simplicity. Children can be hard on each other, vindictive, and just plain mean. But that doesn’t last like it does in adults. In the presence of One who is sinless, they had no trouble responding to His interest. They knew that He cared for them. I too will find, that if I truly care for children, they will respond to me and my interest in teaching them God’s truth. THE RICH YOUNG MAN AND HIS POSSESSIONS: there are serious barriers in life that hinder people from getting God’s blessings. To those of us who do not have a lot of things that we hang on to, it seems like this young man must’ve have been an extremely self-centered person. The truth is, if there is anything that I am holding on to and claiming it is mine; that is a hindrance to my spiritual life with Christ, just as it keeps an unbeliever from Christ. PETER AND FOLLOWING CHRIST: when it comes to the paltry things that we claim and then say we give up for the Lord, it really doesn’t amount to much. And yet, even the little that we do forfeit is recognized in a positive way by the Lord. He promised so much in return when we give so little. How humbling is His grace. God knows. THE SAVIOR AND HIS SUFFERING: this is the third time in three successive chapters where the Lord speaks clearly of His coming sufferings at the hands of men, His death on the cross and His resurrection. Yet, the disciples didn’t really grasp what He was saying. This is not uncommon among us today. We can read and hear spoken about, things that are important to God, but if they don’t fit our preconceived ideas of what should be, we reject or ignore them. THE SONS OF ZEBEDEE AND THE KINGDOM: the promises that relate to the future always intrigue us. We wonder what it’s going to be like and in a way, like James and John, we wonder where we will fit and what we will be involved in. In a way, I don’t fault them. The Lord didn’t rebuke them, but reminded them that there are things we don’t need to know now. What He did though, was to use the situation as a “teaching moment.” He explained the fact that things are different in God’s kingdom. To serve is the highest privilege of all in God’s kingdom.
BARTIMAEUS AND THE SON OF DAVID: this blind man knew his history. He knew that One who could do what Jesus did was no ordinary Jew, and yet He was one of their own. David’s Son was God’s chosen One. To have insight like this is not always seen among those who are apparently not in the mainstream of society. It may be there are more insightful people around us than we realize. May we bring them to Jesus rather than ignore them.
“O God who knows all that is not seen nor heard by us: give me the needed spiritual eyesight to look beyond the externals that are seen in the people around me in everyday life. I need to be more observant of the issues in the lives of others. In a way, part of me hardly wants to be bothered and in another way, I want to draw near to them like the Lord did, and meet some needs. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.”