Thursday Reading: Mark 12:19-25
Key Verse: Mark 12:24
24 And answering Jesus said to them, Do you not err because of this, not knowing Scriptures, nor the power of God?
Devotion:
Our ways are certainly not God’s ways. Man has proved that from the beginning of time when he chose to sin instead of continuing in God’s honest ways. Man is enticed by so many things and some of them are not that obvious. One of the ways that Satan will try to get round us is through our pride which can take many forms. One of our weakest is also one of our strongest and that is honour. We try to make sure that we do things in an honourable way or that we keep our word or our ways no matter what happens around us. Sometimes that fact that we are keeping our word is actually working against God and we don’t always see it.
God’s ways are perfect and we try to make our ways follow on from that. But sometimes we keep to what we have said rather than standing back and evaluating the circumstance against God’s Word; or in other words we keep to our own word rather than to God’s Word. It is a fine line that we tread in many things in our lives but one that has to be kept. The only way that we can be sure of staying on the right track is by always keeping God’s Word in preference to our own. Yes it will still land us in trouble because we still do things wrong in between, but at least we will be sure that we are aiming to keep God’s will in our lives.
In this passage the men around Jesus were deliberately trying to trip Him up, not knowing that they should never be able to do that because He is God. Instead they were lifting up man’s word in preference to God’s Word. They lifted up the rules given to Moses knowing that it should be the truth. Yet Jesus was able to further enlighten their minds to show that God’s Laws are firm, without error and can always be used in every case in life. Keeping God’s law in our life should be what we aim for, making sure that people understand that we keep it because it is God’s will and not our own wishes we intend keeping.
Points to Ponder:
Do you look for holes in the law?
Are you trying to make holes in God’s law for your own good?