Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Proverbs 10
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Mark 3:3
Jesus: Come to Me.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
As usual with eye witnesses, Mark gives us a slightly different account of the encounter in the temple with the man with the withered hand. The Pharisees want to see what He will do since it’s the Sabbath. He’s already scorched them with His answer about His disciples eating a handful of grain as they walked through the field on their way to the temple. But now here is this man with what is described as a withered hand. We don’t know what kind of disease, illness, deformity, or accident caused his hand to be withered, but we know he had little use of it and wanted relief from his malady.
We also know crowds already knew Jesus could heal sicknesses, injuries, deformities, and maladies no one else could heal. Jesus was a miracle worker and this man needed a miracle if his hand were to return to normal. But healing on the Sabbath. Talk about taboo. That would break all the rules. Doctors didn’t practice on the Sabbath. They just didn’t. So what would Jesus do? The stage was set. The Pharisees gaped from one side of the courtyard. The man with the withered hand looked pleadingly from the other side of the courtyard. Jesus stood between them. The crowd line both sides watching the standoff.
Jesus knows what the Pharisees are thinking. “Will He dare to break the law again and heal this man on the Sabbath? Let’s see if His compassion overtakes His sense of their Sabbath Law in the temple.”
Jesus says, “Come to me.”
I can see the man staring across the courtyard seeing the eyes of those Pharisees burning into him with raw hatred. He wouldn’t be taking more steps than allowed on this holy day. He was careful to measure his steps so he would have plenty left to cross the courtyard and even go to the pool of Siloam if Jesus asked him to. He planned this day well because he heard Jesus might be here today. His friends had seen Him coming to Jerusalem and so this man hoped beyond hope he would find Jesus here today.
He looked at the Pharisees again. Then he looked at Jesus and into His warm, compassionate eyes. He saw the love He had for all humankind in those eyes. He saw something in His countenance He just couldn’t resist. The Pharisees might ban him from the temple the rest of his days, but he would listen to this gentle man with the power of God resting on Him.
He heard the Jesus’ command ringing in his ears. Looked one more time at that band of Pharisees and compared their religion and lack of joy with the faith of this man who spoke like no other and the joy that radiate from Him. He stepped forward and followed Jesus’ command to come. He saw no other way to find the healing He knew this man could provide. The Pharisees wanted revenge. This man wanted healing and peace.
I expect half the crowd sided with the Pharisees that day. They needed their rules. They needed the regimentation the law gave them. They needed someone to intervene for them because they could not or did not want to live up to the law. So they needed the priests. But Jesus wanted them to have a personal relationship with God. He wanted them to talk to God as if He were their father. That’s what He did and He wanted them to do that too.
Jesus wanted them to look beyond the routine and see the possibilities when you let God take charge and do things out of the ordinary and do God-like things instead of just the things man can do. So part of the crowd stood on the side with the man wanting healing. They needed freedom. They needed healing. They needed peace. They needed real relationship with God instead of just their religion.
So what does that tell us today?
I think it says there will always be those, even within our organized religions that want to keep us trapped in rules and regulations. Even if there are good things that should be done that disrupt the ordinary, those will cry out against those good things because of the rules they live by. And they will consequently lose great blessings and the joy of following Jesus.
I think it says we will occasionally have opportunities to hear Jesus tell us to come to Him, but we will have to overcome the glare and ridicule of some tough opposition. The opposition might be fierce and even do everything in its power to destroy us, but if we will stand faithful and follow Jesus’ command, the reward will be well worth it in the end.
I think it says we have two choices, we can cower to the influence of those who want to rule our lives with the way things have always been whether right or wrong and find their favor, or we can follow God and find His favor. There are but two choices. Like the man with the withered hand, make the right one.
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