Mark 11:27-12:17 How much do you value truth? How much are you willing to change your life to conform to the demands of truth? The religious leaders reveal multiple times they are more concerned about keeping the status quo than they are about knowing and walking in the truth. They ask Jesus questions but do not really care about the answers and other times only do it to “catch him in his words” o...

Mark 11:1-26 C.S. Lewis wrote that Jesus is either a liar, lord, or lunatic. Often people want to think that Jesus was simply a good man and a great moral teacher, but the words of Jesus do not leave us with those options. We have to take seriously the claims Jesus made about himself. As Jesus entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, it was clear to the crowds that he was proclaiming himself kin...

Mark 10:32-52 So often we miss what God is doing. We are so busy and consumed by our own agendas that we miss the larger, more beautiful work that God is performing. In Mark 10:32-52, Jesus heads toward Jerusalem and announces that he is walking into his arrest, condemnation, abuse, and death. The disciples seem to completely miss the meaning of his words. They, like us, are so consumed by their t...

Mark 10:13-31 Who are the most important people in our society? Younger people might think of social media influencers while older people might think of business moguls or politicians. Yet Jesus wants us to understand the value of every person. Jesus is confronted by two extremes of the ancient social significance scale in Mark 10. First, he is brought a series of little children. Kids can be elev...

Mark 9:30-10:12 Who is the greatest person you have ever met? Is it a celebrity, a financial guru, a powerful CEO? The way we conceive of greatness, especially as a culture, is profoundly different from Jesus’ view. This is why Jesus came to earth not only as Lord, savior, and king, but also as a teacher. He came as a teacher because we are prone to embrace lies rather than truth.Mark 9 describes ...

Mark 9:1-29 Jesus came to Earth with power. Despite looking physically like any other Jewish man, he continually demonstrated his unparalleled power. He performed miracles, he revealed supreme knowledge and wisdom, and he asserted his control over creation. In Mark 9, his power was revealed in the transfiguration as he became "dazzling white." Then his power was again shown when he cast a demon ou...

Mark 8:11-38It is so easy to miss the point. You can hear a sermon and walk away failing to grasp what it is all about. Or maybe you feel like that after reading the Bible. Many people who experienced Jesus in the flesh missed the point. The Pharisees were so fixated on trying to trick Jesus with theological riddles that they failed to come to grips with who he was. The disciples were often so fix...

Mark 7:24-8:10 Today’s reading centers around a few of Jesus’s most famous miracles: casting out a demon, healing deafness, and multiplying the loaves and fish to feed the four thousand. These miracles have long been celebrated by the Church, but we can often forget that God’s power did not vanish along with Jesus’s ascension to heaven. Although the Bible is clear that God is, and always will be, ...

Mark 7:1-23 Proverbs 21:11 compares our hearts to a river. Our desires, pursuits, and longings are flowing in a direction; the only question is where. Our spiritual heart health determines so much of our lives that it is critical we consistently evaluate it. The Pharisees were fixated on externals while Jesus’ focus was on the heart. Jesus is concerned about motivations, desires, and thoughts, whi...

Mark 6:30-56 Are you good at allowing past lessons you learned change your present? Do you remember what God did yesterday and use that to trust him more today? The night after feeding the 5,000, Jesus’ disciples were overwhelmed by the wind on the lake. Amid their exhaustion, Jesus walked out to them on top of the water. We are told that they “were completely amazed, for they had not understood a...

Mark 6:1-29 There is a lie spread in many churches that if we have enough faith and obey God, it will lead to health, wealth, and prosperity here and now. This sounds wonderful, but it is profoundly unbiblical. John the Baptist was the forerunner for Jesus and preached a message of repentance to the masses. He fulfilled his calling, and the result was his gruesome death. He was first arrested by H...

Mark 5:21-43 What is the most desperate you have ever been? When was the last time you felt like life was out of control and there was nothing you could do to fix the problem? Mark 5 introduces us to two people who, in their desperation, did the only thing they could think to do: run to Jesus. We see Jairus, a synagogue ruler, and therefore, most likely not surrounded by friends who are encouragin...

Mark 4:26-5:20 In my whitewater canoeing days, my little canoe would more often than I liked hit a large wave and the cold water would rush into the boat. The air bags would struggle to keep me and the canoe afloat as I attempted to maneuver it to shore. The disciples found themselves in a similar situation in the Sea of Galilee. Mark 4:37 says “the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the b...

Mark 3:31-4:25 When someone asks you who you are, what do you share? You may talk about your job, your children, the city you are from, but do you ever share you are part of God’s family? When you place your faith in Christ, one of the things that happens is you are brought into a brand-new family. Jesus’ physical family rejected him as Messiah early in his ministry, but Jesus says “whoever does G...

Mark 3:7-30 Who is Jesus? That is the most important question we need to answer. This is so critical that it has eternal ramifications. Jesus says, “All the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of eternal sin.” Whatever this sin is, forgiveness is impossible. So what is it? When Jesus makes this claim...

Mark 2:13-3:6 How do the Old and New Testaments fit together? When we read the Old Testament and the Mosaic Covenant, we might wonder how they relate to Jesus. This is a question that many of the religious leaders had as well. Jesus brought a new covenant and a new way of life. In contrast the Pharisees and many in the early church tried to mash together the old way of things with the new. Jesus d...

Mark 1:29-2:12 What do you consider a productive day? Is it checking several things off your to do list? Is it making a bunch of money? Often our view of productivity looks more American than biblical, and more like the disciples than that of Jesus. Jesus’ public ministry has just begun and the disciples were ecstatic about the size of the crowds and their growing influence, but Jesus was not focu...

Mark 1:1-28 Where would you begin your life story? You might begin it with your birth, with some distant ancestor, with your first memory, or with a significant early event in your life. As we read through the four Gospels, we will discover they all begin in a different place. Matthew began with Abraham (a distance ancestor of Jesus) while Mark began with John the Baptist, a relative of Jesus. The...

Matthew 28:1-20 Have you ever experienced a time when sorrow was turned to joy? In the discovery of the resurrection of Jesus, we see the greatest transformation of emotions ever. Despair and uncertainty turned to joy and hope. The three Marys went to the tomb on Sunday to anoint a dead body, but discovered an empty tomb. An angel told them Jesus rose from the dead just as he said he would. Jesus ...

Matthew 27:32-66 What does power look like? How do we know whether someone is weak or strong? In the death of Jesus, we see that God’s view of power is very different from the world’s view. Those who watched Jesus’ death believed his crucifixion revealed weakness. While Jesus was on the cross, people mocked him for his seeming failure to fulfill his claims. The religious leaders also joined by say...