Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Luke 15-16
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Mark 3:23-29
Jesus: Listen. How can Satan drive out Satan? A kingdom that makes war against itself will collapse. A household divided against itself cannot stand. If Satan opposes himself, he cannot stand and is finished.
If you want to break into the house of a strong man and plunder it, you have to bind him first. Then you can do whatever you want with his possessions. Listen, the truth is that people can be forgiven of almost anything. God has been known to forgive many things, even blasphemy. But speaking evil of the Spirit of God is an unforgivable sin that will follow you into eternity.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Jesus wants us united as His church. He wants us to come together to carry out the mission He gave us before He ascended into heaven on a cloud. He wants us to have that single aim, to go and make disciple, teaching them the things He taught His first disciples. So how have we gotten to where we are today with the divide between all those denominations and branches and Catholic and Protestant and everything in between.
Somewhere along the line, we let that thing called selfishness slip in again. I want my way. Even in building the kingdom. I want to believe the way I want. I want to interpret what Jesus said the way I want. I want to live the commandments the way I think they should be lived. I want to hear sermons that touch me the way I want them to. We get into this selfish mode even in our religions. We pick and choose and establish our faith around our desires and our will and our wants even while trying to seek God’s will.
One of the things that slapped me in the face several years ago as I was trying to find God’s will for my life was the selfishness of that very thought. God’s will for my life. I started thinking about that and discovered I kept looking the wrong direction for what I should do next. I was looking for God to point at my life instead of me running toward His.
It sounds like a simple change in thought, but it is a tremendous revolution in your pattern of thinking, really. It’s the renewing of your mind, Paul talks about in Romans 12, because the tables turn. Instead of asking where I’m going next to find favor with Him, I instead ask God where He is going and I will follow. When we begin to change the thought from what is Your will for me, to just what is Your will, things begin to change. It’s just a little thing, but taking me out of the equation changes your focus and brings others into your thoughts clearer and brighter than ever before.
I think it’s this process Jesus taught us in the garden when He prayed “not My will, but Your will be done.” I think it helps us live in the spirit seeking God’s will always. I think it means listening for His voice wherever we are and looking for those opportunities to share His love whenever we have the chance. I think it changes our whole outlook if we just change that single way we ask about God’s will for life. Not my will, not even His will for me, just His will and I’ll go there.
If we would all begin to change our thought process to follow God explicitly in this way, I think the division in churches would disappear. If we would sincerely ask what God’s will was and stop there and then follow, I think the violence in the streets would be curbed significantly. I think we would find revivals sparked around the world. I think we would see healing taking place. I think the church and the world would be very different if we just asked God about His will and followed.
But instead, we forget to ask and go our own way. We want what we want and so we fight each other. We can’t agree on the simplest things and so disrupt the work of the kingdom with our selfishness. We forget the real task at hand, sharing the good news that Jesus came to give His life that we might have abundant, everlasting life. We forget He came to fulfill our lives and bring joy through forgiveness of our sins and we bicker and fight with each other instead of standing together against the real enemy – sin.
Jesus told those that thought He cast out demons by the power of Satan that Satan would lose his strength and power if his minions fought against each other. Isn’t the same true of the church? If we war against each other, don’t we lose the strength and power we could experience if we worked together in unity. Jesus continually called us to unity. It’s about time, the church rose up together against the evil of this world instead of bickering with each other.
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