OCTOBER 5, 2021 READINGS... Luke 8:1-3 & Mark 3:20-30 & Matthew 12:22-45 & Mark 3 :31-35 & Matthew 12:46-50 & Luke 8:19-21 & Mark 4:1-9 & Matthew 13:1-9 & Luke 8:4-8 & Mark 4:10-20
It is good to be back with you. Thank you all for the prayers during my time with Covid. I cannot tell you how much I appreciated every one of them, and love you all so much. I hope you have been able to keep up with your daily Bible readings. These are exciting passages as we move into the ministry of Jesus. Great job…for you have made it three-fourths of the way through reading the entire Bible…stay in there, you will be blessed.
In today’s readings Jesus is confronted as He continues His ministry of healing, and His ministry of casting demons those who were possessed. The religious leaders accused Jesus of doing this by the power of Satan. They had crossed a huge line, for they were blaspheming the Holy Spirit, by attributing to Satan that which belongs to the Spirit of God. They are rejecting Jesus’ person, and His authority. This is a sin that cannot be forgiven. To call Jesus an emissary of Satan is to reject Him outright…and to reject Jesus is to condemn one’s soul to eternal hell. Jesus responds to these religious, but lost people by identifying them. He says, “You brood of snakes! How could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For whatever is in your heart determines what you say.”
When they try to change the subject and have Jesus produce some sign to prove who He is (as if what He has done was not enough)…Jesus tells them again that they are evil, and that He would give them no sign to bring belief, other than the “sign of Jonah”…Jesus’ Resurrection. Sadly, even today people won’t receive this proof.
Jesus then gives a parable of the farmer sowing seeds. He does not give the interpretation, so we won’t do that either…at least until tomorrow. What he does tell us is that the farmer sows his seed, but the seed falls on different types of ground…producing different results. Here is what is common in this parable. The farmer is the same farmer. The seed is the same seed. The variable in this parable is the ground. The first ground is a worn footpath…and the birds came and ate the seed resting on the hard path. The second ground was shallow and rocky…and though the seed sprouted quickly, it had no root system and withered. The third ground was filled with all kinds of weeds and overgrowth…the seed was soon choked out and the thorns and weeds took over. The final ground was good and fertile…the seed in this soil produced a crop of thirty, sixty, and even a hundred-fold. Learn the lesson of the soil.
Please share your thoughts from today’s readings. Attribute to God that which belongs to Him…and make sure your ground is fertile.
TOMORROW’S READINGS… Matthew 13:10-23 & Luke 8:9-18 & Mark 4:21-29 & Matthew 13:24-30 & Mark 4:30-34 & Matthew 13:31-52 & Mark 4:35-41 & Matthew 8:23-27 & Luke 8:22-25
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