As you waved goodbye to your friends at church last Sunday, what mental darts were left stuck in the target of your thinking? Can you remember those pointed challenges from the man who stood before you with Bible in hand? How many hours have passed since you sat there, opening your ears and heart to counsel from God’s always-relevant Book? A few dozen maybe? Ah, it’s starting to fade, isn’t it?
Read MoreTag Archives: Mark
What Employees Want
A Public Agenda Foundation study, coauthored by Daniel Yankelovich, came up with these top ten qualities that today’s workers want in a job: 1) Work with people who treat me with respect. 2) Interesting work . . .
Read MoreDo What You Can
Centuries ago a little boy found himself in the midst of a vast crowd of people—larger than any group he’d ever seen. He had come out of curiosity, having heard that a man named Jesus was nearby.
Read MoreTo Serve and to Give
God’s true servant is like the Lord Jesus, who came not “to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). To serve and to give. Pride wants strokes—lots of them. It loves to get the credit.
Read MoreThe Sting of the Thorn, Part Two
We’ve been talking about Jesus’s parable in Mark 4:1–20 about the farmer who sows seeds in four different types of soil. As I mentioned in Part One, I’m bothered by the third group because thorns come in and destroy the healthy growth of the Christian. It is interesting that the thorns were already present at the time the seed entered, and that the thorns were never completely out of the picture even though the seeds began to take root (Mark 4:7).
Read MoreThe Sting of the Thorn, Part One
Give the Reverend Dullard Drydust enough time and he will manage to confuse most sections of the Bible. Because we preachers are notorious for getting hung up on Greek tenses and purpose clauses and theological trivia, we often shy away from those passages that appear nontechnical and plain. Like the parables, to be specific. Like Mark 4, to be exact.
Read MoreFor a Heart of Service
“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45) It’s a pretty awesome thing, Lord, to be in Your service. It’s a lot easier to begin and run a company, even a big corporation, than it is to serve the body of Christ. As humans, we see the outward appearance, but You look at the heart.
Read MoreQuietness
It is almost 10:00, Monday night. The children are snoozing and snoring upstairs (or they should be!). Aside from a few outside noises—a passing car . . . a barking dog . . . a few, faint voices in the distance—all’s quiet on the home front. That wonderful, much-needed presence has again come for a visit—quietness. Oh, how I love it . . . how I need it.
Read MoreStaying Alert
YOUR MIND IS A MUSCLE. It needs to be stretched to stay sharp. It needs to be prodded and pushed to perform. Let it get idle and lazy on you, and that muscle will become a pitiful mass of flab in a brief period of time. How can you stretch your mind? What are some good mental exercises that will keep the cobwebs away?
Read MoreA Servant, Not a Celebrity
EVER WONDER if Jesus would have agreed to star in His own reality TV show? Let’s allow Him to answer in His own words: The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many. (MARK 10:45) No mumbo jumbo. Just a straight-from-the-shoulder response. Jesus came to be a servant. Being a celebrity wasn’t in His DNA.
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