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Today we see Jesus taking the religious leader out to the “wood shed”. The religious leaders continually try their best to stump Jesus or catch him in a lie until we reach Mark 12:34, When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions. In the end, some of the leaders showed they understood the principles, however they missed the final piece of believing that Jesus really was the Messiah. This gives us important insight into understanding the importance of studying God’s word, along with applying what we read to create true relationship with God.
Daily Devotion 
Here’s something new I learned regarding the rich man not making it into the kingdom of heaven. This is yet another place where Jesus turns everything cultural on it’s head. It was understood in this culture that just by virtue of being rich, you would go to heaven. So when Jesus says this guy isn’t going to make it to heaven BECAUSE of his wealth, it left everyone thinking, “Well, if not even the rich can make it in, who can!?”
So Jesus is saying so much more than just making the point that you cannot have faith in anything but him.
And the man’s wealth wasn’t the issue. It was his heart. He had put his faith in his money. For some it’s money. For some it’s family. For some it’s work. For some it’s appearance. Whatever it is, Jesus is saying you can’t have faith in those things. And it’s not to be mean! It’s actually quite loving because he knows that ultimate faith in anything but him will lead to our destruction.
So this just hit me in the Psalm for today. Kinda goes hand in hand with what I wrote yesterday:
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
“No sound is heard from them”. They just radiate the glory of God. Maybe we should be more like the heavens at times…
Great point Sarah! Unfortunately, that would require us to sit still long enough to hear God and radiate Him through our lives. We (read me) do not have the patience to truly wait and listen to God and allow Him to do His work purely through us. Radiating God is so much better than radiating ourselves for all the world to see. When the world sees God through us it is much better than the world only seeing the limitations of what we have to offer..
You crack me up!
yeah, the whole waiting on God thing…it is scary at first, and it is very hard. It goes against every fiber. But I encourage you to do it when you feel like he’s telling you to sit tight. Doesn’t mean you have to sit still though. Heaven forbid! 🙂 But let your soul sit still.