Tag Archives: God’s will

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – GREATER THAN HUMAN TIES

Bible Study, ,

GREATER THAN HUMAN TIES

31 Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”

33 “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.

34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” Mark 3:31-35

There is a relationship that supersedes even the closest of family ties. It’s difficult to pick up the mood of Jesus’ human family in this short record. Why were they here, as a family, to see Jesus? Were they on some kind of rescue mission, seeing that they had all come together? Did they think He needed protection from Himself because His popularity was getting out of hand?

Once again Jesus emerges as the sanest of all the people in this scene. His agenda was long term. This earthly life was only a passing phase in the scheme of things, and He knew it. His mission was to restore and rebuild His Father’s family – those who would reconnect with God by faith through His redeeming sacrifice. He would have to endure this early paranoia in His ministry because there would come a time when people would either become offended by Him because of the cost of following Him, or they would go on seeing and believing who He really was and become connected to Him regardless of the cost, because they understood His long-term mission to reunite them with the Father.

Hence Jesus did not set as much store on the relationship He had with His natural family as He did on His passion to win back God’s forever family. It may have initially seemed like rejection but, in the long term, every one of His natural family members had the same invitation and the same opportunity to become even more intimate members of His faith family.

Paul declared that, when we are “in Christ”, everything changes. The old scheme of things is replaced by the new. Old family ties are replaced by new ones; our old nature with its bent towards independence, is replaced by a restored connection with God as our Father and its accompanying sense of identity and security because we now belong to a universal family forever under the benevolent control of our eternal Father.

Who Are My Mother And Brothers?

Bible Study, , ,

WHO ARE MY MOTHER AND BROTHERS?

Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone to call Him. A crowd was sitting around Him, and they told Him, ‘Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.’ ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ He asked. Then He looked at those seated in a circle around Him and said, ‘Here are my mother and brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.’ (Mark3: 31-35).

That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it? Especially since they came all the way from Nazareth to see Him.

As we travel through the Gospel of Mark, we will learn something about Jesus that we should never forget and that it would do well for us to apply in our own lives as well. Jesus always viewed life from the perspective of the Father and never from an earthly viewpoint. As far as He was concerned, the kingdom of God took precedence over earthly considerations.

What was He saying? That He didn’t care about His family or even that He repudiated them, that He did not acknowledge that He had a blood family at all? Had He cut Himself completely loose from them so that they no longer mattered to Him? I don’t think that He meant that at all.

We have to ask, first of all, why they were there. A few verses back we learned that they thought He was crazy. They had come to get Him to take Him home. Why? Was it to protect Him from Himself or to protect Him from the crowd? Perhaps one or both. Why did He need to be protected? Obviously, because He could not look after Himself. He had lost it, so they thought.

What did Jesus mean by His question, ‘Who are my mother and brothers’? He looked beyond mere family ties to a family that He had come to redeem and restore to the Father that was far more important and of lasting value than the ties of human families. Although He belonged to a human family, they had to learn that in the end He headed up a family of people more closely bound together than blood ties because they would become His true “blood” brothers through the shedding of His own blood for them.

His brothers rejected Him and His claims to be the Son of God until after the resurrection. They refused to believe in Him and even taunted Him (John 7: 2-5). The same once-unbelieving family members were together with the other believers when the Holy Spirit fell on the day of Pentecost. Letters from His brothers, James and Jude, were included in the inspired Scriptures. Their faith in Him promoted them from being part of His earthly family to being members of God’s forever family.

How do we know this is so? Mary Magdalene, according to John’s report, was the first to meet Jesus after His resurrection. She was so overjoyed that she wanted to take hold of Him and never let Him go. He remonstrated with her.

Jesus said, ‘Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and to your Father, to my God and your God.’ (John 20:17-18).

Did you get that? He called His disciples, ‘My brothers.’ He had called them servants and friends but never brothers. He put them on the same level as Himself – calling God “my Father and your Father, my God and you God.” Did you get the significance of what He said? Those who sat around Him listening and hanging onto every word that came from His mouth were potentially part of the family of God which spans time and eternity. His death and resurrection sealed the reality of that family.

It was God’s intention, from the beginning, to have a family of sons and daughters who were exactly like His Son. Sin interrupted His plan but He never gave up on it. He sent His Son to reveal His true self to people whose understanding of Him was distorted by the devil’s deception, and to redeem and reconcile mankind to Himself. Through faith in Jesus and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, He works in us to restore and recreate His image in us.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. (Rom. 8: 28-29).

Can you see, now, why Jesus was not willing that His human family lay exclusive claim to Him? Family He might be, but that was earthly and temporary. His intention to rebuild God’s forever family overshadowed any earthly ties. It was imperative that His mother and brothers get the message as quickly as possible and release Him to fulfil the will of the Father of all fathers.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Glimpses Of The Great God: Day Fifteen

Devotion, , ,

DAY FIFTEEN

 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer,

and though the Lord makes His life a guilt offering,

He will see His offspring and prolong His days,

and the will of the Lord will prosper in His hand.

After the suffering of His soul,

He will see the light of life and be satisfied;

by His knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,

and He will bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will give Him a portion among the great,

and He will divide the spoils with the strong,

because He poured out His life unto death,

and was numbered with the transgressors.

For He bore the sin of many,

and made intercession for the transgressors.

Isaiah 53:10-12

 The first words of this passage come as a shock.  All this pain, all this agony, all this humiliation — God not only allowed it but actually initiated it.  How can this be?  How could God be happy to inflict such a terrible experience on His own Son?   But that is only half of the story. This magnificent story has a glorious ending.  Injustice, torture, torment and suffering did not end with death. On the other side of the grave there was life, and not only for Jesus but for us as well.  God’s pleasure was not in the suffering His Son had to endure but in the outcome of that suffering.  God knew that through the travail of His Son’s soul, there would be many who would be brought into His eternal kingdom.  Gaze long on the bloodied Son of God, hanging on a cross.  That is the measure of God’s love for you.