His Imprint on Us

We have been going through the book of Mark these past few weeks so I thought it might be beneficial to continue in my blog along the same lines. As we've been talking about how Jesus left imprints on us this is never truer than what we see in Mark chapter 8. This passage Jesus is exposed for who he is, the Christ, the Son of God. There are still those that he has yet to reveal himself to because their hearts would only be to destroy he, but there are others, like his disciples that have begun to figure things out. The challenge we face every day is do we truly believe in who Jesus is or has he become another great character on a long list of people we respect. Jesus is the Son of God, our Messiah, our Savior if we could only grasp a small percentage of what that meant it would completely reformat our lives. This truth is the message that makes all things new. We have nothing to do with the change that has come over a Christ follower. I appreciate John Lanferman's statement last week saying, we can do nothing bad enough to make God love us less and we can do nothing good enough to make God love us more. His love for us is absolute! We are not in control of His love; we can't manipulate it one way or another. His love is His to give and He has given it freely to us.

I enjoy reading the comments that Peter makes, both positive and negative. At one moment Peter is the star pupil and the next he's the class clown. Peter faces those same challenges we face today, discerning when we are to live in the natural or live in the supernatural.  We often think the answer to the question is found in the natural when it is actually found in the spiritual.  As a Christ follower our first response should be turning to the Lord for discernment regarding whatever we are facing.  This seems obvious, but I know personally this isn’t my first response.   

I would encourage you to read through Mark 8 again and feel the magnitude of what Christ is revealing and concealing at the same time.  Jesus was very intentional about making himself known.  This week let’s follow His example and be intentional about revealing or concealing the message of the Gospel.  There are those whose hearts are ready and there are those whose hearts are not.  Let’s be discerning as we love people.

Warren