Category: Mark

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

Jesus gives several repeated warnings in this chapter. Is there one that stands out to you today? Speculation about end-times can be a sidetrack off Christ’s path!

SJA Notes

* God Above, Your word convicts us in thought, word and deed. Please refine us today.

“Therefore stay away – for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning – lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.”

This is a message for us today.

Jesus speaks to us, through all the ages.

Stay awake!

There are some hard edges to this word from Jesus.

One is the warning against complacency.

Am I complacent with Jesus, with His word, with His Name, with living my life for Him?

Let us wake up, and spur one another on to good works, helping keep each other from spiritual sleep.

* Dear Father in Heaven,

You are coming back one day.

Please help us to stay awake.

Lord please revive the hearts of those around us.

Amen.

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

Verses 26,27 form a wonderful answer by Jesus. These words also give the lie to the false belief of soul-sleep – that you cease to be, to live, at death and remain so until the resurrection. God is the God of the living – and Abraham and other Patriarchs were all physically dead!

SJA Notes

* Dear Lord God, Your word is what we need. Please teach us today.

“For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

There is a very real truth here of the open-hearted giving that Paul speaks of in 2 Corinthians, not reluctantly or under compulsion, a cheerful giver.

But there is also COST and SELF-UNDERSTANDING involved.

The woman gave all that she had. From an earthly perspective it is hard to understand why you would do that. But the woman had obviously considered the cost and chosen to put her trust in the Lord rather than the things of this world.

And the woman gave out of her poverty. Our own state before the Lord is one of having nothing of note, nothing of worth in ourselves – It is only Him at work in us, His love and faithfulness, His Spirit writing His word on our hearts.

We too are to give all we have to the Lord with an open heart from out of our humble estate.

* Holy God,

There is none like You.

Please help us offer up our very selves as living sacrifices, and may these offerings be holy and acceptable to You.

Amen.

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

Jesus spoke this parable in Chapter 12 after the attack by the Chief Priests and others about Jesus’ authority to do and teach such things. What is the warning to those who are in the position of builders in God’s Church?

SJA Notes

* Creator God, You have written Your Word to us for our good, please help us listen and obey today.

“And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.”

Jesus describes a hard truth to those who would listen.

The Pharisees certainly listened, and were perceptive enough to understand the parable was told with them as the “baddies”.

But there are a few threads in this story from Jesus.

Amazingly, He speaks clearly (as He has been to His disciples in the moving toward Jerusalem) of His own pending death.

In John 15 Jesus speaks to us in words of the vineyard,

“I am the vine; you are the branches.”

The leaders of God’s people at that time refused to acknowledge Jesus, God the Son, the VINE ITSELF – That they were supposed to be tending.

Are we refusing today to acknowledge Jesus?

Let us examine our own motives and actions/words/thoughts today in the light of God’s word to us.

May we be fruit-bearing branches of the true vine!

* Holy Father God,

Thank You that Jesus is the true vine. We are the branches.

Please mark us as fruit-bearing branches of the true vine.

We would bear much fruit.

Amen.