A Guided Tour; Wk 1 Part 3

Brief introductory credits flash on the screen, Then the camera pans across an expanse of bleached sand, inhabited mostly by scorpions, lizards and tarantulas. At last, through the shimmering heat a tone figure appears: an eccentric wearing camel's hair and crying somthing in the think desert air. So begins Mark. 
I think Mark, to be like a action movie, He is very direct with his stories, very little dialogue but tones of action. I love it. Mark spills out four maraicles in the first chapter and covers the important parts and leaves out small details. Not saying the small details are not important, just not for Mark. I think of his as a modern, reading a book on the go kind of guy. 
 In this chapter, we hear about John preparing the way for the coming on the Lord, Short and sweet from Mark, moves onto "The Calling of the First Disciples" We get a small short story on how Jesus found his crew. I think it is so cool, that he is just walking down the road, call's out to these guys and is like, Hey! Leave you stuff, Come hang with me. I'll make you fishers of men. To cool, talk about any awesome way to pick friends. After this we read about Jesus driving out an evil spirit, He was in Capernaum and on Sunday he went into the synagogue and begin to teach. (DAD NOTE; Notice, Jesus was always teaching, not preaching. Think about that.) The bible says he would teach with authority, not of law. That was different to the people and it stuck out to them. A man, possessed by an evil spirit, then cried out, "What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are - The Holy One of God!" (Mark 1:24) Jesus, replied "Be quiet!" "Come out of him!" (Mark 1:25) The evil spirit shook the man violently and then came out of him with a shriek. Mark then says the people were all so amazed that they asked each, "What is This? A new teaching and wit authority!" 
Once again, I feel that emotions are let out, I do not know what your beliefs are, but I believe that there are people right now today who God has chosen to do those type of things. If you have ever seen anything like this, Amazed is not the right word at all! I saw some thing just like this, once, and I'll never forget it. I was speechless for about an hour, I could not believe what I just saw, actually I did not really believe it till about 2 years later. 
Jesus then heals Mary, Not his mother, but Simon's mother in law. She was in bed with a fever, his crew informed him about her. Jesus then went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them. After that, the town came to the door and brought the sick and demon possessed. Mark states in verse 34 that Jesus held many, and cast out many demons, not letting them speak.
This scene reminds me of the transporter movie, when he is in the garage fighting off like 25 "evil" guys sliding threw the oil with the peddle bike peddles on his feet. It's an awesome fight scene, that last's a total of 50 seconds. Much like this story. Mark, leaves out all details of Jesus' work in this story except for what he did for Simon's mother-in-law. I find it odd, but yet it is still practiced today with famous writers and movie makers, the "hero" does so much cool stuff in the movie or book, they can not explain everything, or else the movie would be 3 days long, and the book would make the dictionary look like a child's bedtime story. 
My favorite story in this chapter is when Jesus goes to pray in a solitary place, first off, I love solitary places. I am blessed right now to have a lot of free time, and time for me to reflect on my life, and become closer with God. But yet, I still find myself leaving my house and going to a quite place. Even though I bring my puppy with me, There is just some thing about getting out, and going some where to be with God. In this story, Jesus leaves his crew and heads off to his place to pray to God. After some time, his crew started to worry so they went looking for him, and when they found him they stated; "Everyone is looking for you!" Jesus did not answer him, instead he said, Lets go to other towns so I can do this everywhere. 
I find it very awesome that he did not feel the need to explain himself to anyone. I think back to Luke, when his parents found him after 3 days of looking, and he stated; Well, where else did you think I would be. Again same case, Well, where else did you think I would be. I think that is so cool. 
I was upstairs in my bedroom a few days ago, and my oldest son was playing in his room across the hall, He plays with his toys cars and calls them Mommy and Daddy and Braiden, and Papa and Caleb and so on. Well one evening, I kept hearing him yell, "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" So of course I come running into his room yelling "What! What! What's wrong, Are you O.K." and he looked right at me, with eyes wide open and a shocked look on his face, then he looks behind him, see's no one then points to his chest and says "Me? I not talking to you Daddy, I talking to him (pointing to Doc, his toy car) Daddy!" I think of that when I think of Jesus' crew, or his parents, coming to find him. I can see the reaction in my son's face to be the same. 
In reading this chapter, I learned some more information about Jesus but I was thinking today of how I could take some thing from this chapter and apply it to my life, and I think one of the biggest points in this chapter is that Jesus, was always teaching his followers, he was not commanding laws and rules, he was offering a way to God through him, but only if you wanted it. I want to have that skill in begin a father, I want to be able to show my kids everything they need to know, but yet give them the choice no matter which way they will go. I am finding that is the hardest thing to do, even though I know, pulling the dogs tail will make her bark, I still have to still here and watch Bam get scared when it happens. I feel the sooner I start to teach rather than rule the better. 


May God bless you this weekend,
Eric





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Jeremiah 29:11