Today’s Reading: Mark 12
Key Verse: Mark 12:24
Jesus answered and said to them, “Are you not therefore mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God?…”
Jesus taught that we learn about God by knowing both the Scriptures and the power of God. There are those who concern themselves with one or the other, and who fail to have both the Word of God and the working of the Holy Spirit in a balanced Christian life. Failure to give attention to both will produce a lopsided and ineffective believer. Therefore, we should take quality time reading God’s Word in a systematic way (this will help), and after we’ve heard from God, take time to pray fervently for the infilling of the Holy Spirit for the new day of service. This chapter begins with the parable of those who were unwilling to recognize the servants that the owner of the vineyard had sent to them. With a diligent effort to balance the head and the heart with Scripture and the experience of God’s Spirit, we will not fall into error or fanaticism.
PRAYER FOR TODAY:
Father God, Your Son and our Savior showed us how a Christian should live in balance. May He live fully in me so that Your Word and Your Spirit will produce daily the fruit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit in a balanced way (Gal. 5:22-25 and 1 Cor. 12:4-11). I pray this through the Person of Jesus Christ in whom I live. Amen!
100 PERSONAL WORDS:
Before I write, I know that in order to communicate as I should, I must spend an equal time reading God’s Word, meditating on that Word and in prayer. I try to spend the same amount of time on my personal devotions as I do writing these words. This discipline goes back to my earliest days in witnessing for Jesus. I really messed up a great opportunity to win a man for Christ by a lack of wisdom (“He that wins souls is wise” Proverbs 11:30), and a failure to keep filled with the Holy Spirit. I watched this man turn away from God. I cried out to God in my private time and was taught the reason for my failure…the lesson of today. One other lesson from today’s reading: When God counts the amount of our giving of offerings to Him, He counts the size of our gift by how much we have left over after we’ve given, not the actual cash value of our gift. Think about it the next time you give.
