Ditch Doubt

Mark 10-12

"Jesus looked him hard in the eye - and love him! He said, 'There's one thing left: Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me.' The man's face clouded over. This was the last thing he expected to hear, and he walked off with a heavy heart. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and not about to let go."

Mark 11:12-25

Ok so basically this is what happens, Jesus realizes he is hungry and could use a snack, and he is looking around wondering what to eat, and he sees a fig tree! And thinks, man a fig would hit the spot. So he walks over to the tree, only to realize that there were no figs on the fig tree. And he is annoyed, and he curses the fig tree! And the very next day the discples and Jesus walk past the same tree and the disciples are like what! it worked?! The tree had died!! Turned into a shriveled up stick! And Jesus is like hey, thats nothing, if you want to throw a mountain in the sea, all you have to do is ditch your doubt, and command it to happen. Power of prayer, ta da. But he also adds, that prayer is for forgiveness, and we need to remember to forgive others as well as asking for our own forgiveness.

Mark 11:27

This is so great...

"Then when they were back in Jerusalem once again, as they were walking through the Temple, the high priests, religion scholars, and leaders came up and demanded, 'Show us your credentials. Who authorized you to speak and act like this?"

This is straight out of a movie! "Can I see some identification please? Where is your badge? Who do you work for? Who let you in here?"

And then it gets better, Jesus asks them a tricky question. And he says, if you answer me, I will answer you. He asks if John was baptizing with the power of heaven or man? And they knew if they said heaven Jesus would ask why they didn't believe him, and if they said from men, the people would be mad, because they believed John was a prophet. So They don't answer. And Jesus is like well I am not answering your question then, peace.

Mark 12:44

Everyone is putting their money in the offerring plate, some people who are rich are giving lots of money, then a woman comes up and gives only 2 cents. Jesus said to his disciples, "The truth is that this poor widow gave more to the collection than all the others put together. All the others gave what they'll never miss, she gave extravagantly what she couldn't afford- she gave her all."

Will God be able to say that about me? Will he be able to say I gave my all to him?

Question: Does this Jesus resemble the Jesus you learned about as a child? Why or why not? Basically in these 2 chapters God tells off a lot of people. Tells of people for making things up, Tells off 2 of his disciples for wanting special places in heaven, Tells them off for selling things in his Temple of prayer, tells off a fig tree for not having figs, tells the priests/religious people off for killing God's son (even though they hadn't done it yet), tells off people for asking him ridiculous questions...but he also teaches us a lot in these 2 chapters. We learn that divorce was not part of Gods plan, we learn what we have to sacrifice to truly follow God, we learn that Jesus will be killed, we learn that Jesus cares enough to heal one blind man, We learn that church is not the place for business, we learn that through prayer we have LOADS of power, we learn that we should pay our taxes, and that marriage won't happen in heaven, we learn that the greatest commandment is love, and we learn that we can give money all we want, but until it hurts, until we are really sacrificing, we aren't giving that much.

Psalm 21

"Show your strength God, so no one can miss it."