Numbers 10:1-11:23 ~ Mark 14:1-21 ~ Psalm 51:1-19 ~ Proverbs 10:31-32   So this narrative in the book of Numbers is interesting today.  The children of Israel are getting sick of the manna which was delicious pastry, but I guess you eat delicious pastry enough and that’s all you eat and you get sick of anything.  So they’re sitting around the fires.  Picture it.  Picture when you are on a diet and the diet you are participating in is sort of bland and you’re talking to your friends, ‘what I wouldn’t give for a juicy steak.  What I wouldn’t give for a cupcake’.  And you’re thinking about it and you’re picturing it and you’re tasting it in your imagination.  That’s what they’re doing.  Garlic and onions, fish.  Someone on the other side of the fire says cucumbers, and the whole group says ooooh, cucumbers!  Why did we ever leave Egypt.  And they’re just sick of the manna and they’re crying out for meat.  The Lord hears their displeasure and so does Moses and he’s ticked.  God de [Read More]

Leviticus 25:47-27:13 ~ Mark 10:32-52 ~ Psalm 45:1-17 ~ Proverbs 10:22   Okay, so what we have happening in the book of Mark today is staggering.  It is very, very beautiful.  James and John first get the lesson that is passed down and down and down through time and generation after generation to us today, the ultimate lesson of the Kingdom, the very posture that our lives are to take shape in.      They are before Jesus and he is talking about going away and being killed and coming back from death to life.  They want to get in line and sit at his right and left hand in glory.  He tells them that is not in the cards necessarily.  He doesn’t have any control over that, but that the baptism he is going to have to be baptized in, the cup he is going to have to drink, they’re going to have to drink it too.    The other disciples are just ticked.  They cannot believe the audacity and they start going after them.  Jesus says, wait up guys, this is sort of how things go among unbelieve [Read More]

Leviticus 13:1-59 ~ Mark 6:1-29 ~ Psalm 39:1-13 ~ Proverbs 10:10   So this passage in Mark today really jumps out to me.  Of course, we witness the execution and death of John the Baptist and its horrificness.  It is very powerful.  But before we got to that point, Jesus is back in his hometown, in his homeland, and everybody is looking at him, going, “We know you, boy.  We watched you grow up.  Your family is here.  What is this that you’re saying?  I mean, we’re marveling at what you have to say, but its counterbalanced by the fact that we watched you grow up.”    I think that is very interesting.  Not all of us, but many of us look at our extended families in relationship to our lives in Christ and as we try to strive forward and grow each day in Christ, our family sometimes can be like kryptonite.  This appears to be just how it was for Christ because he says a prophet is not without honor except here in my hometown, in our hometowns, among his relatives and in his household [Read More]

Leviticus 7:28-9:6 ~ Mark 3:31-4:25 ~ Psalm 37:12-29 ~ Proverbs 10:5   I could probably go on for awhile about this proverb because its implications are so deep into our lives.  Jesus said the fields are white unto harvest, but the laborers are few.  Here the proverb says he who gathers the crops in the summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son.  So that leaves not a lot of wiggle room about the harvest.  That is the thing about the Bible.  It doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room.  It challenges us to the life we were called up to live.  It invites us into the adventure that is walking with God and it asks of us everything, all that we are, all that we ever will be in exchange for a personal relationship with the creator of all, in exchange for eternal life.  It is even odd that it is counterintuitive, but it is because we like to be the king of our little castle.  We want to sit on the throne of our lives.  We want to drive the bus.  We want co [Read More]

Leviticus 6:1-7-27 ~ Mark 3:7-30 ~ Psalm 37:1-11 ~ Proverbs 10:3-4   Prayer:  Heavenly Father, it is our great and deep desire to heed the word of the psalmist today.  We would take delight in you and you will give us the desires of our heart, for when we are delighting in you, we are aligned with you.  The desires of our hearts are in alignment with your will for our lives in perfect order.  You take delight in us.  This is what we seek, God.  This is the kind of relationship we’re looking for.  Forgive us for not seeking it out to the end.  Forgive us for the pride, the arrogance, the selfishness, the distractions, the idols, all the things that we can throw up out there as reasons, but the truth is our desire is to have this kind of relationship with you.  That we would obey this psalm.  That we would not fret because of those who are evil.  That we would not envy those who do wrong.  Because the reality is they are going to wither.  They are going to die away.  We’ll put our [Read More]