Monday 18 Aug 2014

August 18: Mark 1:14-15

Key Verse: Mark 1:15
and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

Devotion:
Jesus came to Galilee to continue and expand on the teaching that John had started in his own ministry. Jesus continued to fulfil what the prophets had said would happen and told people that this is exactly what was happening. Jesus was showing that the scriptures were to be believed because they had been written down for our believing. It is the Gospel message that will allow us to see that we need Christ as our Saviour and it is that same Gospel message that will strengthen us when we do start believing.

Part of that believing is the knowledge we find knowing that we have done wrong against God, admitting that we have done wrong and asking for forgiveness from Him. Christ has promised us that we will be forgiven if we ask, believing that He has accomplished what the scriptures told us about. Jesus did not just follow a sequence of words that were written down so that it could look like He did it all right; He came to expand on what was written so that we could understand what we had not understood before.

We can pick up our Bibles and read them and not understand what is going on because we cannot relate to the words yet. But when we do allow Christ into our lives He starts to give us an understanding that goes beyond the words written down and allows us to understand just how much he has done for us. The more that we understand the more that we can trust what is written down. The more that we relate what is written and what is in our lives the more we understand about having faith in the unseen.

Jesus wants us to have faith. Faith comes from understanding how much God has done in our lives and seeing that what is written down has actually happened. Just believing what someone else says is hard for us because we live in a corrupt world. But having an understanding in what has happened and being able to see the ancient scriptures being fulfilled gives us a confidence in the Gospel message. That is how our faith will grow, through understanding.
 
Points to Ponder:
Do you admit your faults?

Do you know God forgives?