Mark 4:21-25

Mark 4:21-25 

English Standard Version 

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  If you had to be judged based on how you judge others, how would you do?  It's easy to nitpick someone else's behaviors or words or choices.  But do you really stop and think about your own?  If so, we can easily come up with reasons to defend our choices -- but we often don't stop to give credit to the idea that someone else can also defend their choices!

  May we be compassionate towards one another, and may God's grace shine through us as we offer grace to one another, realizing that the more we exhale grace, it becomes the atmosphere we breathe in as well.

Mark 4:14-20

Mark 4:14-20 

English Standard Version 

  As I listen to Jesus explain the parable, lately I've been amazed at the vast amounts of seed the sower throws.  A good sower knows their soil -- they know where the rocky soil is, they know the path, they know the thorns.  They are not surprised that there is soil that is less proficient than others.  But the seed ends up there anyway -- the sower does not throw seed dependent on the soil, but the sower throws seed freely, so that all may receive, no matter how poorly receptive some soil may seem to be.  Who knows what might happen there?  I've seen plenty of trees and weeds grow through cracks that wouldn't seem capable of nourishing plant life, but there they are, and nature prevails as a determined force.

  

Mark 4:10-13

Mark 4:10-13 

English Standard Version 

  I could never see the pictures in those Magic Eye books.  I tried -- I read the instructions and held the books at the right distance and tried to focus my eyes... but it never worked.  Not once.  It was right in front of my face, but I never could see through the picture to what was beyond.

  Sometimes, it seems like Jesus was painting pictures with words that were like the Magic Eye.  There was a story, but there was another story behind it, and you had to listen with your ears and with your heart to truly understand what Jesus was trying to say.  He was painting a picture of a God of grace and glory, but it was so easy to be focused on what we've always known and miss the new story Jesus was telling.  

  We're often in the same boat today.  We think we know everything, and so we listen with our ears, but our hearts and attention may be drifting elsewhere.  We're focused on the next thousand things we have to do, and we're not really expecting God to say anything new anyway, so we float along.  

  May the Holy Spirit wake each of us up, and may we spend our time wisely with God.  God wants us, body and soul, to be focused on the mercies of God, which are new every morning.  May we be amazed and delighted, refreshed and renewed, and discover that the more of God we receive, the more we want.  

Mark 4:1-9

Mark 4:1-9 

English Standard Version 

  There's so many different ways to read this passage.  I've read and preached it countless times over the years, and it's grown and challenged me in different ways over the years.  That's one of the things that I love most about Scripture -- it's not some static book to memorize and then leave alone.  You never outgrow it -- it grows with us, and we see it in different ways through the years.  Characters that we didn't appreciate when we were younger make more sense as we mature, and some of our favorite stories are read differently when looked at through the lens of adulthood.  The Bible is immensely challenging and wondrous, always teaching us, always leading us, and for thousands of years it has been a lighthouse for us as we sail through civilization.  

  May we continue to turn to it, asking big questions, and letting God draw us closer, grow us up, and guide us as disciples of the living God.