Global Solution

Mark 7:25b-30
A woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter. “First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.” She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

I wonder if I would have the wisdom of the Syrophoenician woman when Jesus speaks to me in parables because I consider myself very dumb when I read passages like this one selected above. This lady came to Jesus in pain and had a desperate need for Jesus’ miraculous touch on her daughter who was demon possessed. However, she was not Jew and Jesus was there to save the lost sheep of Israel. Would she have any place before a foreign God whose objectives seemed different? In times of desperation, do we seek anything that will give us a solution to our problems?

What Jesus asked her was whether it was right for him to turn his attention to the gentiles before he was done with the Jews and her response showed him that she knew Jesus was here to save sinners, not just a race of people. She must’ve noticed it in the sarcastic language Jesus used to describe gentiles or in his manner of speaking but her answer was apt. I often feel like a servant before Jesus, my Lord, whose crumbs I am not fit to take. In Christ, we have victory from the dominion of sin and suffering because through his death and resurrection, we have the hope of eternity. We all have needs and I know today the Lord speaks to me as clearly as he speaks to you that he wants for us to put our faith in him and know that he will answer our pleas in an amazing way!

In His Loving Service,
Vineet

Man Made Beauty or A Concrete Jungle?

Fruits Without Work

Mark 4:26-29

He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”

Jesus spoke in parables and sometimes I wonder why not just plain talk but that doubt was clarified in v11 where he said that the secrets of the kingdom of God are revealed to those God chooses to reveal it to and not to those who God chooses not to. Today’s parable seems so obvious and I would wonder why some people dint get it but as I read it again, I realized that to understand it, one first needs to understand God’s will for our own lives. This parable was spoken in the spiritual sense and has to do with what God commanded us to do in Matthew 28:19-20 when he gave us the great commission. He commanded us to go and share the good news of salvation through his own death and resurrection and the new hope that we have of knowing where we are headed beyond this physical body.

As servants of God, our primary calling is to serve God and not ourselves. After we are saved, our new lives are not to be lived for our old selves but for our maker and creator who saved us from certain death and the fires of hell. For this great blessing, we are called to go out and share this great news of forgiveness and hope which is free to all men. A serious challenge we face with this commission is our minds which makes us wonder how we can share the good news because we may not be good speakers like Moses, worry about loosing friends when we talk things that they don’t appreciate, etc. However, we need to realize that God saved us not because of anything we did but because he wanted to bless us and we need to go out and shamelessly share this same good news and not worry about the result because that is God’s work. Are you willing to stand us for your savior? If yes, do it shamelessly for the Lord and if no, seek God’s help to know how you can serve him.

In His Loving Service,

Vineet

Bridge Over Calm Waters