Mark

I read the first part of chapter one today. I know it doesnt seem like a lot, but I wanted to do something that I could maintain so I can't slack off later. Basically it was about John the Baptist baptising people- including Jesus and also how Jesus called some fisherman to follow him and they dropped everything and trusted him. John was saying "make the path smooth and straight for Gods kingdom". Jesus is going to return and we need to spread the gospel with everything we've got before he gets here. Another thing that I got out of these verses is that I need to drop everything and follow God, no questions asked. I definitely dont have enough trust in God because I'm more worried about having no friends and feeling like a loser than not obeying his commands and not trusting him with my life. What really struck me is that it said one of the fisherman left his father with no hesitancy and followed Jesus. I tend to make a lot of excuses for not giving my all to God, but the bible clearly shows that God is more important than even family. I can't be lukewarm but I know thats what I am. Realistically, I'm an extremely lukewarm Christian and God hates that. I need to make a drastic change in my life and I dont know if I'm up for it. That would mean that I could possibly lose the friends that I've made, feel insecure, uncomfortable and sad and I know I'm not strong enough to put myself in that situation ny myself. I'm praying that God will give me strength and faith in him so I could be like the fishermen and drop everything in my life to follow him with no questions asked.

I read about how Jesus was teaching the gospel to people. It said how he was confident and not full of crap. He was just speaking the truth- he didnt need any fancy theolical or biblical quotes and airs to spread the gospel. It said that he spoke differently than the Pahrisees who made a big show of holiness when teaching whereas Jesus was just clear and honest. Thats how we need to evangelize. Not full of KOmeaningless show but knowing God's truth and spreading it confidently. I also read about how he chased demons out of people and healed the sick. I have my own personal demons and sicknesses. Theyre figurative demons and sicknesses for me- but for the people Jesus healed, they were completely real demons and real diseases. If Jesus could rid them of these serious issues, I'm absolutely certain he has the power to help me overcome mine. I think theres a truly beautiful peace that comes into my heart when I get extremely stressed out and feel depressed and then I realize what the heck am I worried about. Jesus is on my side and nothing can stop me. That in itself should be enough to comfort me no matter what happens, but somehow its sooo easy to forget. Its extremely important to remember that God is sovereign ALWAYS as he is in control of all of our lives. When we accept that, our burdens become nothing and our hearts can be completely satisfied.

I read about a leper who came begging to Jesus to heal him. He said, "If you want to, you can cleanse me." Jesus healed this man. We are all sinners- we are all diseased with this inescapable flaw called sin. God sent down Jesus to die for us in order for us to be able to be cleansed of our sin and that we wouldn't get what we deserve- which is death, but we can be forgiven and live in heaven for eternity. That future is something that people whocall themselves Christians take for granted. The terrifying reality is that some "Christians" may not be saved. Of course, this is not for me or you to judge about others- my job is to focus on my own faith and to be 100% honest with myself. Gods mercy and grace isn't something we can just go like "oh yeah, I messed up but you're God so you'll forgive me". We have to be like the leper, begging on our knees for Jesus to cleanse us. Why should Jesus forgive us if we don't even care about being forgiven and we dont have a heart of repentance? Another thing that the leper had that exemplifies how Christians should live is complete trust in Jesus. He said, "if you want to, you can cleanse me." There was no "I think" or "I hope" in that statement. It was simply a fact to him that Jesus absolutely had the power to heal him. So many times in my life I take small situations and blow them up to be huge issues that I obsess about and feel completely stressed and powerless over. I often forget that I have an almighty, loving God on my side. If we genuinely want forgiveness from God and we trust in him conpletely, he will forgive us.

I read about a paraplegic (paralyzed from the lower half of the body) who was carried to Jesus. Jesus said his sins were forgiven and the Pharisees became angry, saying this was blasphemy because only God himself can forgive sins. Jesus then showed them he was the Son of God by healing the paraplegic. Honestly I dont feel much from this story. The basic jist of what I got from it is that Jesus is the Son of God and we should never underestimate his power and sovereignty.

I read about how Jesus ate with sinners and tax collectors. The Pharisees called him out because Jesus was eating with bad company, but Jesus told then that it is not the healthy who need a Savior, but the sick. Its so much easier for me to evangelize to ther Christians and act godly in front of other Christians, but those people are not the ones who I need to evangelize to. Christians already know the gospel but sinner and people who may annoy or bother us may be ones who need it. We all have to be unafraid to sit amongst those who need God's love and mercy and to spread his word to all people- not just the nice or good ones.

Oh shoot can't edit on my phone but I wrote something down wrong that looks like I'm saying Christians are not sinners. By sinners I meant nonbelievers because we are all sinners

Okay I skipped a few substories (like the titled little parts in a chapter) because I felt like I really needed some guidance and the next ltttle story didnt feel relevant to my life. I was just flipping through th book of Mark and started idly skimming a story when my eyes caught on to a certain section of the story. It said, "some are like the seed that lands in the gravel. When theybfrist hear the Word, they respond with great enthusiasm. But there is such shallow soil of character that when the emotions wear off and difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it. The seed cast in the weeds represent the ones who hear the kingdom news but are overwhelemed with worries about all the things they have to do as all the things they want to get. The stress strangles what they heard, and nothing good comes of it." I am like the gravel. Its my worst issue when it comes to my faith. I can't stand the idea of being a fake Christian, I can't stand the idea that I do things for show and have no real faith and love for God behind it. Yet still, when difficulty arises and God's Willis different than what I want for myself- I automatically do what I want with no regards for God's plan for me. I'm gravel in the story of the scattered seeds. I dont want to be gravel and I'm terrified that I will always stay as gravel. By myself I feel incapable of being a good Christian because I'm so lazy and weak. It makes me angry that no matter what I'm always going to sin and I'm always going to hurt God. The one thing that bothers me most is when I repeatedly pray that I could change my life for God because if I'm praying that repeatedly, it means that I'm not doing it and I have to say it again and again. Basically I dont want to be a shallow fake Christian and I want to have real, solid faith.

I read the story about how Jesus and the disciples were in a boat when there was a huge storm and the boat started sinking. Immediately the disciples began to panic and looked for Jesus only to find his sleeping. They woke him up and asked him if he even cared that they were sinking. Jesus gets up, stops the storm and then reprimands them for being cowards with little faith. That storm could have easily killed each one of the disciples but it was still not match for Jesus. That horrible physics final could easily make you lose your mind from stress but it is still no match for Jesus. Life has ups and downs, and when our own personal storms come we have to trust in God because he is infinitely more powerful than whatever is making you feel like you're drowning. Nothing is too much for him, we just have to have faith that God will see us through. If we have faith in God, we are his children. God doesnt let his children suffer alone. Faith in God is what will help us through hard times because if we have faith in him, his power can take our seemingly huge troubles and smush them into tiny lumps of insignificance. It's always so encouraging to know that we have an almighty, loving and all knowing God on our side. We just have to believe in him.

Oh man, skipped a day. I find it hard to both do qt and devos on the same day because I'm lazy. Classic example of being lukewarm- which is something God hates. I'm slowly trying to change, I just hope God will give me strength to put his will ahead of my own desires. I read about how Jesus cast out demons from a madman into some pigs. The way I interpreted this does not concern the pigs in any way- I honed in on the fact that Jesus has the power to remove demons from a crazy possessed man with supernatural strength. After Jesus removed the demon, the man became sane and normal. There's two main lessons I got from this. Both are centered around the fact that Jesus has the power to do anything and everything- no matter how drastic or powerful I may think my problem is. That means that Jesus is in control of my life but it also means that Jesus has the power to save those who are so far gone that everyone thinks they are insane or hopeless. I think everyone has people in their lives who they think are just completely unreachable and won't ever listen to the gospel. Jesus proves us wrong by being able to change and save even the most loony town, possessed. If a man who had to be chained multiple times and was able to rip himself from those chains can be redeemed then so can any difficult person in my life. I make a lot of excuses about why I can't evangelize to people but honestly if Jesus is on our side we have absolutely no plausible excuse to not try and spread his word because Jesus is all powerful.

I read about how Jesus went to heal a little girl, a woman touched his robe and was healed and how Jesus brought the dead girl back to life. There are a couple things I got from this story. An often reoccurring theme in the Bible is faith. Those with faith are healed because Jesus sees how wholeheartedly they believe in him and his ability as God. Another thing is secrecy (at least in the book of Mark). After performing all these miracles, Jesus repeatedly tells the people who witnessed it to keep quiet and not tell anyone what they saw. I wondered why for a bit and then I thought of a potential reason for this. Blessed are those who cannot see, but believe. I've heard something like that before, and I think it basically means its easy to believe in something when an impossible miracle is done right in front of your eyes but true faith is when you hear God's word, accept it and have complete faith in him. God doesn't want outlr faith determined by what other people tell us or the stories we hear. It should come from our own experiences with God and his love.

I read about how Jesus went around his hometown teaching but people were stubborn and refused to listen. Jesus talked about how prophets are unappreciated in their own hometowns. I connected this to people and how easily accessible and abundant God's word is. We (pt) are all exposed to God's word and his salvation. Most of us have Christian families and we all go to church. We have the Bible and God's word given to us on a silver platter at least once each week. However, sometimes its easy to become almost immune or irreverent of what we are hearing. Because we're so used to it, if we're not careful the teachings could lose their meaning to us. As an MK I hear and saw a lot of compelling stories and miracles in peoples lives. One of the biggest struggles MK's have during furlough or after moving back from their mission country is the lack of passion in Christians of the Western society. Things seem stale and God's word is not taken with the same desperation and love as it is in (for example) North Korea where they will die if found worshipping God. Just because its easy for us to worship does NOT mean we should take it for granted or care less. We are all surrounded by God's word and sometimes I dont appreciate it. It seems like those who can't easily worship Jesus and those who are oppressed against having faith in God are more appreciative of his power and love. That may have been what Jesus was witnessing- the people in his hometown were too stale and stubborn to accept his teachings. We need to make sure we are not the same.

I read about how Jesus sent out the 12 disciples to spread the gospel. He gave them instructions to not take a lot of fancy things- just the bare necessities and to shake the dust off their feet and leave if the people would not listen. Often we do a lot of things that are "Christiany" and holy but in reality, we dont need anything other than God's truth to reach other people. I didnt really feel like I got too much out of this story but I can see that Jesus wants us to evangelize in an honest and real way.

Haven't done devos in so long and wow oh my, its so hard to start again. I know this is going to be lame but I have to at least make an effort. Ugh, lukewarmness again. Anyways, I read about how John was beheaded because Herodias danced for the king and basically manipulated him to kill John. What I learned from this is that lust and showiness gets you nowhere. I know that's probably sooo completely off from what I'm supposed to retain from that story but I can't think well right now and honestly I don't really know what to learn from it.

Pretty irritated with myself because I always put God second on my life. Obviously I'm not irritated enough with myself because I keep doing it. I promised myself that I would try to put God ahead of the other things in my life rn, but so far that hasn't been the case. Today I read about how Jesus walked on water, calmed the storms and healed people. I think years of hearing the same stories over and over again have caused me to lose the awe I should feel when I hear about a man who was able to do these things. I wonder how amazing it would be to see Jesus in the flesh, performing these miracles and I also wonder if I would believe it or reject it like some people did. I know it's easy to think that of course we would accept it if h did it right in front of our eyes but the truth is that Jesus performs miracles right in front of our eyes all the time. I know I'm very blessed and God has caused so many miracles to happen in my life. It's ridiculously easy to forget them though. I'm shocked by how quickly the novelty and excitement of things can fade away into nothing but a faint, emotionless memory of something that happened in the past. I'm thinking of a specific example: once my family really needed 10,000 dollars for some thing that my dad needed to do. We prayed about it and didn't tell anyone else but the next day we received an anonymous check from "an old friend" for 10,000 dollars. That is amazing and I dont know how I can go a single day without being shocked about it but its faded into a distant memory that doesnt affect me much. This story talked about the reverance and excitement people had to meet Jesus and I guess I'm just saying we should be the same way.

Its pretty sad that I've read the sane story three days in a row but never wrote a devo on it because I was too lazy. I read about how Jesus and his disciples were eating with "unclean" hands and the Pharisees started judging them and saying they were defiling God's name. Jesus told them that what defiles us comes from within, not outward appearances. The act of holy righteousness the Pharisees put on was completely fake and insincere. Jesus teaches us not to be like that. We should never put on a show of "good Christianity" when its not real in our hearts because God sees our hearts for what we really feel.

I read about how a Greek woman came to Jesus and begged him to cast a demon out of her daughter. They were talking about children 's crumbs and dogs and the woman said that even dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs and Jesus said "for such a reply, go home abd find you daughter healed". That confused me because I dont understand what really happened with the whole crumbs and dog thing. What I got from this is that Jesus is all powerful and merciful. That's a pretty generic observation from reading the Bible, but its true nonetheless.

I know this is called mark but I'm doing a devo on 1 john rn. 1 John chapter 3. I'm not going to type it out but basically its talking about how those who sin and continue to sin don't have God in their hearts. I asked Sam what that means but we had to leave church (Friday night Bible study) and he said it doesn't mean if we sin we're not children of God but then what does it mean? Tbh it really scared me. Lately I've been having a lot of thoughts about hell and real Christianity. There are many verses in the Bible that says if you do y do not do this, you are not a follower of God. The thing is I do or do not do some of those things which led me to think I am not a child of God. I believe in hell. Its a terrifying place. Its so scary. The thiught of it alone is note than enough motivation to try to follow God. I started getting so scared and worried and just upset that a place as awful as hell actually exists and how much I don't want myself or people I care about, or anyone for that matter, to go to hell. But its there, and the reality is that people will go to hell. Knowing this, how can I sit on my butt and not do anything about it? And yet, that's what I do. Not just that, I'm not even sure if I'm saved because I don't live the way the Bible says I need to. I think if I died today I would go to hell. Oh my goodness, I am so scared. I think either God or Satan has been really trying to speak to me over the last few days and its left me extremely uncomfortable. I thought to myself, this isn't what Christianity is supposed to be like. I'm supposed to be filled with joy and love and thankfulness for Gods amazing love and mercy. I just felt fear though, and I still do. Especially when I see others around me who don't know Jesus and all I can think about is if you don't change, you're going to hell and I'm doing absolutely nothing about it. I feel like there's such a lack of urgency in a lot of Christians in our society. Man, I don't think this has much to do with the chapter anymore. I'm just writing about what's been going on recently. I've been thinking about my closest friends who aren't living godly lives and I think, would they go to hell? And then I get extremely upset because the thought of them being tortured eternally is too much for me to bear, and yet what do I do about it? I hear so many messages saying this exact same thing. I'm so confused because at first I thought God is trying to reach out and convict me but just as I was writing this I thought maybe Satan is trying to scare and discourage me. Idk, I know following God is not supposed to be based on fear and I want the joy and fulfillment that's supposed to come from knowing and loving Jesus. I just don't feel it right now, all I feel is terror and dread. Sometimes I even wish that the whole spiritual realm didn't exist, and people could just live and die. Ohman, is that blasphemy or something? I'm just trying to be real, I can't stand the thought that maybe one day when I have kids, they won't be saved and I'll watch them burn in hell or that I'll be there with them like oh my goodness I'm so scared to the point that I actually thought that I don't want to have kids so that there's no chance if that happening. Idk what's happening to me rn but I need to lean on Gid throughout it. The thing is even with all these thoughts running through my mind, I still don't want to take the time to pray or have qt and I still want to live for myself. That's why I was thinking maybe God is trying to open my eyes and help me see. I believe that he's here. If I trust in him, I'll get through whatever this is. I think he just gave me some comfort. Literally just right now, as I'm writing this. Oh I forgot to mention, after I had my first boit of panicked thoughts about hell and myself and people I care about and I thought to myself no, this isn't what Christianity is supposed to be like, I think God gave me a sense of comfort and I felt safe then. There are so many questions I want to ask but I feel likeid get no answer or that I have no right to ask these questions because who am I to question God. But how am I supposed to believe and love someone with all my heart, soul and mind without questioning it first? Idk, I worry that I'm doing Christianity wrong. That I think I'm safe but I'm not. That I'm fooling myself. That others I love have fooled themselves. Who am I to judge, and I'm not trying to condemn others. Its just, the thought of then suffering for eternity is something that I detest vehemently and I don't want that to happen. The possibility that it could is enough to make me worry out of my mind. I worry about myself too. Ohno, here I go again. I'll end this now and pray for guidance and wisdom and that I'd be able to trust God and feel his love. So scared lol