Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Ezekiel 31-36
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Mark 3:4-5
Jesus: Do our laws tell us to do good or evil on the Sabbath? To save life, or to snuff it out?
They remained silent.
Jesus was furious as He looked out over the crowd, and He was grieved by their hard hearts.
Jesus (to the man with the withered hand): So be it. Stretch out your hand.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
I wonder how often God gets furious with our silence. As we’ve watched the violence around the world and in our own country the last several days and weeks, I can’t imagine the pain and anger He feels at just how evil His greatest creation has become. How could we stoop so low as to kill each other over the color of our skin or the way we talk or the place we live? How could we get to the point that life means so little that we would kill innocent people because some idiot killed another person? When did it become okay to take vengeance on the innocents because of the guilt of wrongdoers?
God must be furious with us, don’t you think? We were created to love each other and worship Him. He is a God of love and peace and joy. We, in our drive to fill our selfish desires, have turned this world into one of hate and war and sorrow. How can we do that in light of all God does for us?
The answer is found in that word selfish. From the very beginning, Satan tempted Adam and Eve to satisfy instead of God. Everything else stemmed from that first fall. We want what we want at any cost and the cost has been high. Just look around and you see the price we pay every day. Broken homes, racial divide, nations warring against each other over 10 miles of land, civil war, war in the name of God. Would He approve of any of this? No. He is a God of love and peace and joy. But in our selfishness we want our way, not His and so we continue to see others the way we want to see them, instead of the way He sees them.
What do our religions do? They stand silent on the sidelines while all this is going on. All of us do it. Christian, Muslim, Hindu, all of them. We stand aside and let the faithful destroy the infidels because we want our way, not God’s. You see, God never told us to go and destroy those that don’t agree with us. He told us to go and make disciples.
But you don’t make disciples by coercion. You can’t turn someone into a follower by putting a gun to their head and forcing them to recite a creed. That’s not how it works. God doesn’t coerce people to come to Him. He only accepts volunteers. He only adopts those that come to Him with contrite hearts and are ready to turn from their selfishness and accept His way as the direction for their life.
Jesus was furious at their silence.
And He was grieved at their hard hearts. Why grieved? Because until we stop trying to justify our selfishness as just human or the way we are or the natural order of things, we will never come to repentance. We close our eyes to the truth God lays out in front of us and stubbornly hang on to what we want. That’s what those in the temple did that day in front of Jesus.
The Pharisees wanted their way. They wanted Jesus to obey their rules, not His. They wanted the people around Him to concede to the law as they interpreted it, not the way this man who some said came from God said it should be interpreted. The people gathered there didn’t want to disrupt the way things had always been. They were comfortable in their rituals and rules. They wanted their way.
So you can just see in your mind’s eye as they straightened their back, stiffened their necks, lowered their eyelids and glared at Jesus. Would He dare to cross them? Jesus grieved because He knew they could not find forgiveness until they allowed their hearts to feel the pain of their sin and understand the selfishness that must be turned toward God if they were to find peace.
Jesus grieved at their lack of understanding. He grieved at their failure to see that they could be freed from the guilt and pain if they would just repent. But instead they stood silent. How many today just stand on the side silent. Trying to ride the fence with one foot in the world and one foot in the church. It doesn’t work. We are either on God’s side or not. And when we are on His side, we can not stand silent. We must do His work to make disciples.
The silent majority helped get us into the mess we’re in today. The silent Christian is an oxymoron. There really is no such thing. When you really find Christ, you can not keep silent. Just listen to the man with the withered hand, the leper, those who chose to follow Him. None were silent despite the persecution, ridicule, humiliation, and even death they faced. No, if you are on His side, you won’t be silent. If you are, Jesus will grieve for you.
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