Mark 10 Devotions by Stephen Taylor

Mark 10:20,21

"Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy." Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

Jesus loved him by telling him the truth! Jesus doesn't go back and point out every failure and sin in this man's life but only points to the thing standing directly between this man and a personal relationship with Christ, his money. I'm sure this man had other sins in his life, other places that he failed, but Christ doesn't address those but rather addresses the thing that was hindering him from truly following Christ.

This man's god was money, but for us, it may be sex, drugs, our job, our status, our families, or maybe even our position in the church. You see, idols don't have to necessarily be evil or wicked things but can be good things God has blessed us with, but that we have perverted into an idol. Worshiping the gift instead of the Giver.

Jesus is also teaching us the importance of putting off the old and putting on the new. He doesn't just tell the man to get rid of the idol but then also to come and follow Him. It’s extremely important that we do both. If this man were to only get rid of the money idol but not come and follow Christ, he would be in danger of falling back into old habits or worse! Christ helps illustrate this truth in the verses below. We were never created to stand alone or apart from God but to stand firm because of God! Big difference! The cross we are called to carry is heavy and requires both hands. We must fully grasp this life Christ is offering, or we may be in danger of watching it slip through our fingers! Christ loved this man by telling him the truth; by this standard, do we love those around us?

Matthew 12:43-45- "When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean, and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation."

God bless! I love you all, but His love tells us the truth! Glory, honor, and praise now and forever to Papa God, Jesus Christ our King, and the Holy Spirit!

 

Mark 10:33,34

“We are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.”

Jesus counted the cost and walked in purpose towards it; do we? He knew what lie before Him: the mocking, the beating, the degrading of Himself, the crucifixion and the betrayal. Yet He didn’t waiver or back down. He didn’t throw a fit and say, “This isn’t fair,” but walked boldly toward the cross with faith and assurance that God would see Him through. He knew that this journey would cost Him; do we?

It will cost us relationships, it will cost us time, it will cost us sleep, and it will cost us the pleasures of this world. But do you know what it won’t cost us? Our eternity! Our hope is not in this world but in the One who created it and died for it. We aren’t to remain the same after Christ calls us to Himself, but we are to become new creations in Him. The old person can’t go on the new person’s journey. We aren’t to be similar to the world but set apart. Different, not standoffish or “better than” but set apart for God and His glory. If our lives look exactly the same before Christ as after Christ, we have to ask ourselves: are we serving Him wholeheartedly or just claiming Him with our lips?

Matthew 15:7-9- “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’”

God bless! I love you all, but His love went the distance! Glory, honor, and praise now and forever to Papa God, Jesus Christ our King, and the Holy Spirit!

 

Mark 10:33,34

“We are going up to Jerusalem,” He said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles, who will mock Him and spit on Him, flog Him and kill Him. Three days later He will rise.”

Jesus went anyway; will we? When the path before us leads us where we don’t want to go, will we still follow Him with the same reverence and passion we do today? Christ was fully aware of all that would follow in the days to come, yet He followed His Father’s will, not His flesh. His flesh must have cried out to go the other way, that it wasn’t worth it, that we weren’t worth it. How the enemy and His flesh must have screamed these things and so much more, yet He went anyway.

Our King knew what was waiting on Him before He stepped out of Heaven; He did not have an easy life nor an easy death; from start to finish, it was tough and heavy. Yet it did not stop Him from coming to save us. Will we let the hardships of this life stop us from coming to Him? From following Him? Each one of us must choose who we will serve, Jesus Christ or anything else.

The road we walk with Christ will be marked by hardship and pain, but so will the road without Him. Each road holds its own struggles and defeats, but in Christ, we have the ultimate victory! It looked as though the deck was stacked against Christ, that there was no way He was gonna win until God raised Him from the dead through the power of the Holy Spirit, and instantly sin and death’s boast were silenced. They no longer had the victory over the children of God, but rather the children could walk in victory through Jesus Christ!

So today, as we face an uphill battle to the cross, will we set our hearts and minds on things above where Christ is, or will we get discouraged and distracted by the things of this world? Christ proved that it wasn’t easy to follow God’s will, but it’s possible and extremely necessary! Let’s walk in Him and His will today!

Romans 8:9-11- You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

God bless! I love you all, but His love set His eyes upon us and set us free! Glory, honor, and praise now and forever to Papa God, Jesus Christ our King, and the Holy Spirit!