Reflective Bible Study

As we dive into Mark’s gospel, we discover that Mark does not start slowly. Within the first 13 verses, we discover how this gospel points to several big events at the start of Jesus’ ministry, gives us a picture of John the Baptist, and points to a fulfilled prophecy. In Mark’s introduction, we get a quick, but brief look at how the stage was set for Jesus’ ministry to begin.

Let’s read how Mark opens his gospel and discover what we can learn from this introduction. Our passage is found in Mark’s gospel, chapter 1, and we will read from the New American Standard Bible translation. Starting in verse 1, Mark tells us that:

¹ The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

² As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: 
     “Behold, I send My messenger ahead of You, 
          Who will prepare Your way; 
     ³ The voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
          ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, 
        Make His paths straight.’” 

⁴ John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵ And all the country of Judea was going out to him, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. ⁶ John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist, and his diet was locusts and wild honey. ⁷ And he was preaching, and saying, “After me One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals. ⁸ I baptized you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

⁹ In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰ Immediately coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens opening, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him; ¹¹ and a voice came out of the heavens: “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.”

¹² Immediately the Spirit impelled Him to go out into the wilderness. ¹³ And He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan; and He was with the wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to Him.

In these 13 verses, Mark opens his gospel sharing about how the prophet Isaiah prophesied the appearing of John the Baptist. Isaiah describes the messenger God would send ahead of Jesus as a voice of one crying in the wilderness, and the first description Mark uses to describe John the Baptist is that he appeared in the wilderness preaching about repentance and baptism being important pieces for ultimately receiving forgiveness from sins.

Mark’s gospel frames John’s ministry as a successful one, because the verse describing John’s ministry said, “And all the country of Judea was going out to him, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.” Regardless of how strange John the Baptist was, a ministry that taught repentance and baptism would be called successful when people were being baptized and confessing their sins.

While some people might think repentance is simply confessing sins, repentance is actually something much more significant. Repentance is more internal, more long-term, and more like a direction change in one’s life and focus. Repentance is harder to measure in a single event. Confessing sins is the first step to turning away from them because confessing sins acknowledges the sin and it identifies it as being what God doesn’t want for our lives. In order to repent and turn away from sin, we must first be able to identify what is sin and what God doesn’t want in our lives.

Mark tells us that John’s message also pointed people forward to Someone coming after him, and how everything in John’s ministry foreshadowed Jesus. Without skipping a beat or writing any unnecessary words, in eight short verses, we have a clear overview of John the Baptist’s ministry pointing people towards Jesus.

Talking about John’s message about baptism and about One coming after him leads into the transition Mark uses to describe Jesus. Jesus first steps into the public spotlight by coming to John to be baptized. While other gospel writers include more details about this event, Mark doesn’t get bogged down describing details. Mark simply tells us exactly what we need to know: Jesus was baptized by John, and in that moment, John’s baptism of water and God the Father’s baptism of the Spirit launched Jesus’ ministry. Mark focuses on the big truth that in Jesus’ baptism, God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and God the Son are present together at the start of the Son’s ministry on earth.

Mark then describes the first event Jesus does following being baptized and beginning His ministry as being called out into the wilderness to be tempted for forty days. Again, while Matthew and Luke give more details about Jesus’ temptation, Mark wants us to be aware of the big picture of what happened, because all this is setting the stage for Jesus’ ministry teaching, preaching, healing, and helping people.

In Mark’s summary-introduction to Jesus’ ministry, we discover something about Jesus and about how Mark will likely be writing this gospel. While Mark might not include all the details we might see in Matthew or Luke, Mark’s gospel gives us a no-nonsense picture of Jesus that keeps moving forward. If Mark decides to slow down and give more details of an event, then these details are significant in Jesus’ ministry and they are significant in our lives as well.

Within this quick, summary introduction, we see a big truth and a big theme about receiving the Holy Spirit. When Mark describes Jesus’ baptism, in the context immediately before this Mark has just predicted that the One who comes after Him would baptize with the Holy Spirit. When Mark then describes Jesus’ baptism, we see an amazing picture that this baptism wasn’t just with water like John’s previous baptisms. Instead, Jesus’ baptism was with both water and with the Holy Spirit at the start of His ministry, and when Jesus received the Holy Spirit at the beginning of His ministry, this sets the stage for Jesus to be able to baptize others with the Spirit.

The other big challenge I see in Mark’s introduction to Jesus’ ministry is that after Jesus received the Holy Spirit at His baptism, Jesus lets the Holy Spirit take the lead and direct Him where to go from that point forward. While the next stop for Jesus was temptations in the wilderness, Mark describes for us how this was a Holy Spirit directed stop. This means that when we are letting God’s Holy Spirit lead us, we may be led to places that are not comfortable, and when we are in the places God’s Spirit leads us, we can expect to be tempted. It was this way with Jesus and it is foolish to believe that it won’t be this way for Jesus’ followers.

However, like Jesus, we are called to let the Holy Spirit lead in our lives and to resist temptation like Jesus resisted it. While Mark doesn’t describe Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness like Matthew or Luke, Mark draws our attention onto the big truth that even while Jesus was being tempted, God was still with Him and God had not forgotten Him. When we are tempted, God isn’t ignoring us. Instead, when we are tempted, God is paying attention to us and standing by ready to help us stand firm resisting the temptation.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I consistently challenge you to do, remember to seek God first in your life and to let God’s Holy Spirit lead and guide you moving through life. Remember that when we are tempted, God is standing by ready and willing to help us resist the temptation, and being tempted is not a sign of God’s neglect. Instead, being tempted may give us a hint that we are right where God Holy Spirit wants us!

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God in your life. Don’t let someone else step between you and God. While devotionals are nice things to have, they only can take your faith so far. Resolve today and for this year that you will actually open your Bible and study it with God and not through the lens of another author, speaker, or writer.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or be tempted into leaving where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

In our last episode, we began reviewing our past year’s worth of podcasting by focusing in on insights and profound thoughts we discovered while studying through Luke’s gospel. Our last episode focused us on insights we learned during the first portion of this past year.

For this episode, we turn our attention onto the second half of our year of podcasting in Luke’s gospel, and onto things we learn as Luke leads us through Jesus’ journey towards the cross.

However, before diving into these insights, I always like to take a minute or two to talk about what we will look at next year. As some of you might remember, a little over three years ago, I suggested that we take the next four years and focus each year on one of the gospel records. We began with Matthew two years ago, Mark was last year, and the year we wrapping up with this episode focused on Luke.

I have been amazed and blessed with the time spent in each of these gospels, and we have one gospel left: the gospel of John. Following the grand plan we began a few years ago, let’s take next year and focus on what one of Jesus’ closest disciples can tell us about Jesus’ ministry on earth. I’m not sure what we’ll focus on for the year following John, but we will have plenty of time to figure it out as we move through the last of the four gospels.

However, in order to get to John’s gospel, we need to finish up looking at our insights from Luke’s gospel, and with that said, let’s dive into what we learned over the last half of this year of podcasting.

Let’s begin by looking at some big insights from episode 27, which focused in on Jesus’ message about Jerusalem and some Pharisees warning Jesus about Herod. In this episode, we are reminded that doing evil separates us from God, and that means our present choices outweigh our past decisions for God. Our present choices matter when we are discussing salvation because being saved is a decision that is always made in the present! The only decision that truly matters is a present decision to accept Jesus, repent and move away from doing evil, and accept the gift of salvation.

Before Jesus’ resurrection, ascension, and return, Jerusalem is known as the city who killed God’s prophets, Jesus included, but when Jesus ultimately returns, God’s people will get to experience the New Jerusalem, which is the city God built that will ultimately protect His people forever!

Jumping forward to episode 29, when we learned what it means to be a true disciple of Jesus and to count the cost of following Jesus, we were challenged with the truth that if following Jesus does not have much of a commitment, then following Jesus doesn’t have much value. The more committed a relationship is, the more valuable it is – especially when we are talking about a relationship with God!

Jesus is looking for disciples who will follow Him even when their families, their friends, their coworkers, and anyone else in their lives thinks they are crazy.

Moving forward, we reach episode 31 which looked at Jesus’ famous parable of the prodigal son. In this parable and Jesus’ teaching, we discovered that an arrogant pride is the biggest temptation for people who have been in the church for a long period of time and this arrogant pride is what ultimately formed in Lucifer’s heart. An arrogant pride looks down on others while ignoring one’s own faults.

However, more importantly, we learned that this parable focuses on how patient God is as the father of both sons. Let’s remember that while our lives are likely not going to be as extreme as either brother, we are best served by modeling the prodigal son’s return when we fail God than brushing over our faults like the older son did.

Jumping forward to episode 34, we looked at Jesus’ warning about stumbling blocks for our faith, forgiveness, and being God’s servants. In this episode, Jesus challenges us with the truth that the attitude we have towards God says a lot about our character. Nothing we can ever do, say, or give can repay God for everything He has already blessed us with. Instead of living an immature spiritual life looking for immediate blessings and rewards for every act of obedience, determine today to live a spiritually mature life that sees our lives of service as the best way to show gratitude and thanks to a God who has already given us everything!

A few episodes later, Jesus shared an odd parable about an unjust judge. In this episode, which was number 37, we discovered that when it appears as though God is silent and an unjust world has turned against us, never give up hope, never stop praying, and continually trust that God has a bigger perspective than we do. We can trust that God’s perspective extends infinitely farther into the future than sin lasts, because God’s perspective extends into eternity! Faith, hope, trust, and prayer draw our hearts to God, and even when times are bad, we can know and trust that God will always give what is right to His people, and that He will ultimately judge fairly all the unjustness we experienced in our lives in a sin-filled world.

In the next episode, number 38, where Jesus shares about a Pharisee’s prayer versus the prayer of a repentant tax collector, we learned that we should never be confident in our own perfection because we are not perfect. We have sinned, and because of this, we have fallen short of God’s perfection. We should live confident in Jesus’ righteousness instead of our own and 100% aware of our continual need for Jesus to be our Savior.

Skipping forward a few episodes, we come to Jesus’ parable of the evil vineyard workers that we looked at in episode number 41. In this episode, we were impressed with the idea that Jesus tells these leaders that they would ultimately kill the vineyard owner’s son, and by pressing for Jesus’ death, these leaders push Jesus into a role they likely never wanted Him to be in since the vineyard owner in this parable represents God.

A couple episodes later, in episode number 43, we looked at Jesus warning the disciples about the time of the end. In this episode, Jesus shared the powerful truth that when we press forward, determined to endure to the end, we will ultimately gain our lives. When we endure to the end, we gain Jesus’ life, and Jesus’ life is eternal life. Through what Jesus did, when we endure through persecution, we gain eternal life!

Moving forward to episode 46, we looked a little closer at Jesus’ prayer in the garden on the night He was arrested. In this prayer and in this episode, we discovered that Jesus’ prayer to God reflects how we are challenged to pray. When we come before God in prayer, it is worthwhile to bring our requests to Him. However, we also are challenged to frame our requests as being less important or significant than His will.

Jumping forward to episode 48, where Jesus is being tried before Pilate, we learned that if we want to hear God speak and if we want God to show up in our lives in powerful ways, we must be open to receiving the Holy Spirit into our lives. Demanding God will do something for us is an easy way to receive silence and disappointment.

In the next episode, number 49, we come to a powerful truth we learn from the time Luke describes Jesus hanging on the cross. While most people focus in on Jesus’ promise to a criminal, there is much more to Luke’s account than this single detail. In this episode, we are reminded and challenged with the truth that Jesus lived a life of forgiveness. Jesus offers sinners paradise, and Jesus’ spirit belongs to the Father. Forgiveness leads to salvation, and salvation leads us to the Father!

And to wrap up this year of podcasting through Luke’s gospel, I don’t know of a better statement to leave you with than the big concluding thought from this, second-to-last episode: Jesus came to die for each of us, to forgive our sins, to offer us the gift of paradise, and to show us God’s love and His character. While Jesus was misunderstood throughout His entire ministry, including during the first portion of His time on the cross, starting with the words of a criminal, those present for the crucifixion began to realize who exactly Jesus was and the ultimate Messiah He came to be!

As we enter a new year, let’s keep our focus on what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross and the life He offers us as a gift when we give our hearts, our lives, and our belief to Him!

In our last episode, we began our annual two-part finale focusing in on insights we discovered during the first half of this year focusing on Matthew’s gospel. We ended off last week’s podcast with Jesus rejected at Nazareth. We’ll pick back up at about this point in Matthew’s gospel and move through the second half of Matthew pulling out insights from this last half of our year of podcasting in Matthew.

However, before diving head on into these insights, I want to give you a brief update and a sneak peak at where we’re headed for next year. As our long-time listeners remember, before this year focused on Matthew’s gospel we spent a couple years looking at some topics. Two years ago, we focused in on the week leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion, and last year, we focused in on Jesus’ miracles. As many of you might remember, at the end of our year focusing on Jesus’ miracles, I had the idea of spending the following four years dedicating each year looking at one of the gospels. We just finished Matthew’s gospel, and next up, we’ll be looking at the gospel of Mark.

But while I’m eager to get started looking at and sharing insights from Mark’s gospel, we still have insights left to cover in this last part of our finale focusing on Matthew. So without any further delay, let’s dive into some of the biggest and best insights we discovered while looking at the second half of our year focusing on Matthew’s gospel.

Jumping into the second half of our year in Matthew, episode 26 focused us on the 24 hours or so that included the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus sending the disciples away so He could pray alone, the disciples fighting for their lives in a sudden storm, Jesus walking on the water to them, and what happened when they arrived back on shore. In all these events, we learned that when we are focused on God, His love and power will be seen in our lives and it will positively affect the lives of those around us. We also learned that within these four events, we can see how God is worthy of our trust, our faith, and our belief, and we can see that we succeed when we place His will ahead of our own. We are blessed when we stay focused on Jesus and on doing God’s will for our lives!

Jumping ahead a couple of weeks, we come to episode number 28, where we looked at Jesus helping a gentile woman in a way that might offend some, and how this event is followed up with Jesus feeding a crowd of over 4,000 people. In this episode, we were challenged with the truth that God will sometimes call us to help people who are not like us, and we should help people who ask for help regardless of what they look like and regardless of what our preconceived ideas and stereotypes are. And, God is willing to help us with what we need, and while sometimes He is waiting for us to ask, and push past a few challenges, other times, He is more than willing to supply what we need without us even needing to open our mouths to pray.

Moving ahead to episode 30, where Peter makes the proclamation that Jesus is God’s Son the Messiah, we discover in what happened that regardless of whether I understand prophecy or how the Bible describes future events, my understanding is only as good as my willingness to be open to what God is continually revealing. If I close my mind to what God wants to teach me, then I will ultimately be like the disciples who missed out on the best warning they had regarding the events of crucifixion weekend. The disciples had every opportunity to know what would happen, but they were caught believing the traditional belief of the Messiah, and a belief that the Messiah could not experience death.

In the next episode, number 31, as Jesus comes down the mountain with three of His disciples after the transfiguration, Matthew’s gospel challenges us with the idea that too often, we have our own motives, agendas, thoughts, and perspectives, and we ultimately miss opportunity after opportunity to come to God with the question He wants us to ask.

Moving up to episode number 33, where Jesus describes who would be the greatest in the kingdom by inviting a child to be near Him, we were reminded with the truth that God has given us enough evidence for His existence and enough evidence to show us His character. It is up to us to open our eyes to the evidence He has given and to have faith that looks past the doubt and into the promises He has given to us about our future with Him!

When Jesus talked about forgiveness and conflict resolution in episode 34, He challenged us with the idea that In order to stay forgiven, we must be forgiving towards each other. Jesus’ death on the cross allows God to extend forgiveness to all of humanity. If we choose to not extend forgiveness towards others, then we forfeit our forgiven status and we bring God’s judgment onto ourselves.

Jumping ahead to episode 40, where Jesus is challenged about paying taxes, in Jesus’ response, we discovered that God is not interested in our breath returning to Him before our mission on this earth is finished. Instead, God has loaned us breath so that we can fulfill the mission and purpose He has placed us on this earth to fulfill. In this challenge Jesus shares, I see Jesus challenging every person who has breath to dedicate their breath, or we could say their spirit, or we could say their lives, to God and to the mission He has placed us on this earth to accomplish!

In the next episode after this one, episode 41, Jesus shares a message to Jerusalem while standing near the city. We learned that God isn’t going to force His protection onto a group of people – especially a group of people who are actively rejecting Him. Jesus loves the Jewish people just as much as He loves the non-Jewish people. Bringing this message into today’s culture, we see that placing the truth of the Bible over the traditions of men is the only way for a church or community to stay united with Christ.

Moving forward, when Jesus was anointed during an evening meal shortly before He was betrayed, which we focused in on in episode 44, we learned that: While the woman likely believed her gift to be anointing Jesus leading up to Him stepping into the role of Messiah and King, specifically into the role of a messiah who would overthrow the Romans and give the Jews back their homeland, Jesus shifts the meaning of this gift to be foreshadowing His burial. When we give gifts to Jesus, I believe He is just as willing to take our gifts and use them for His glory, and I believe that while Jesus can use gifts of money to help where money is needed, Jesus really values the gifts that are more specific than money. The gifts we give Jesus that are non-monetary are ones where He can use and multiply for His glory. Giving God non-monetary gifts helps us grow and stay connected to Him in our lives.

Moving forward, we spent several episodes subtly focusing on how Jesus intentionally chose the cross and that dying did not come as a surprise to Him. Jesus could have avoided the cross in any number of ways, but He didn’t and that is because He loves each of us! Episode 45 taught us that Jesus chose the cross. The cross was not something that God the Father forced onto Jesus. The cross was not something Judas Iscariot surprised Jesus with. Jesus knew the date and location of His death before Judas even knew He would be the betrayer.

Without God, life has no ultimate purpose, no hope, and a doomed future. Jesus chose the cross for you and me, and He willingly faced death knowing that through His death, the way would be opened for us to live with God for eternity.

In episode 46, which contained Jesus’ unfair trial that almost fell apart, we learned that When people reject God in their hearts, societies descend into chaos. When people reject God, we shouldn’t be surprised if God chooses to stay silent. Jesus came to show us God’s love, and while there are those who believe God is unloving or unlovable, Jesus came to challenge their belief by living out how much God loves us. Jesus chose the cross to show us God’s love, and through Jesus we can come to know the God who loves us so much that He gives us Himself, and that He gives Himself up to redeem us from the consequences of breaking His law!

Jumping ahead to episode 49, let’s conclude our year of podcasting with what is likely the biggest truth of the gospel message, and the source our greatest hope for our future: On Resurrection morning, the tomb was empty. Jesus returned to life just like He said He would, and His resurrection is a promise, a gift, and a sign that all of God’s people will be resurrected when Jesus returns to take His people home.

As we continue living our lives every day, every month, and every year, remember what Jesus did for us. Jesus did not lie once during His life on earth, and we can trust His words, His promises, and His predictions about being resurrected when He returns to take us home to be with Him!

As we begin our special two-part finale for our year podcasting through Luke’s gospel, let me first wish you a very merry Christmas to you and your family and friends. I hope that you are able to spend time with people you love and I hope that you are healthy over this entire winter season as well. I know I definitely don’t like being sick, and often, when the temperatures turn cold, I start catching a cold, which is aggravating.

However, as we moved through this year looking at Luke’s gospel, one big theme we saw was that sick people who came to Jesus did not stay sick people. Luke is one gospel which loved to draw our attention onto Jesus healing peoples’ physical and spiritual illnesses.

Luke also includes the most detail about the events of Jesus’ birth, as well as John the Baptist’s birth too. With that said, let’s begin our review of our podcast episodes from this past year and focus in on some of the biggest and most profound insights that we uncovered. For time considerations, I might have to skip over some insights because it is always difficult to pull these lists down to a manageable length.

Starting off our year review, let’s look at what we learned in episode 2, which focused in on Gabriel’s visit to Zechariah to promise this elderly couple a child. In our discussion, we discovered that while Zechariah’s silence likely lasted less than a full year, it served as an amazing symbol for God being silent, before stepping into history in a big way through John the Baptist and through Jesus. Zechariah’s silence also served as a sign for everyone present that God was doing something in their midst. Lastly, this sign of muteness served as a reminder to Zechariah himself that God’s promise to him was real!

Jumping ahead to episode 4, we looked at Jesus’ dedication in the temple as a baby, and were awed by the realization that before Jesus had fully stepped into history, and actually barely after He had even entered this world, Simeon, led by the Holy Spirit, forewarns Mary that Jesus’ life as a Messiah would end in death. Jesus would die before she would.

Moving forward to the next episode, episode number 5, we looked at Jesus staying in Jerusalem when He had turned twelve. In this event, we concluded the truth that it is easier to lose Jesus than it is to find Him! One day without Jesus may ultimately result in three days of searching and worry to find Him again!

Skipping over some great episodes we don’t have time to touch on, we move forward to episode 10, where four friends bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus to heal him. In this episode, we learned that sometimes God will validate a message He sends with a miracle. However, don’t expect this to be God’s default method. In the gospels, this might be the only time Jesus uses a miracle to prove a spiritual point. It’s also worth remembering that if God was specifically punishing this man for a sin in his past, there would have been no way for Jesus to heal him against God’s will!

Moving ahead to episode 12, Jesus warns His followers about judging others and He shared a parable about two homes with different foundations. In this event and episode, we ultimately learned that the only thing that matters from eternity’s perspective is what God thinks and how God judges. Jesus has promised us that we can change the measure God uses to judge through the way we interact with others.

Jumping forward to episode 14, Luke includes an event early in his gospel about Jesus’ feet being anointed at Simon’s home. In this episode and event, and within Jesus’ response to Simon and his guests who looked down on what took place, we discovered that the reason we know context matters is God associates with sinners. Jesus came into this world because God loves sinners. While God doesn’t love the sin, that isn’t going to stop Him from seeking out the sinner.

When God forgives our sin, it is like He erases our debt and all that is left is the essence of who we are that He loves. What we do, what we look like, or what is in our genes is not relevant when discussing God’s love.

Jesus assured this woman that her sins were forgiven, because He wanted her to move forward in a new life with God without the cloud of her past weighing her down. Jesus wants us to know that God has forgiven us because He wants us to begin or continue our lives with Him without the sins of our past weighing us down. God wants to redeem us out of sin and into new, eternal lives, with Him!

Continuing our pattern of looking at even numbered episodes, which is something I just noticed but didn’t plan, we arrive at episode 16, where we looked at Jesus casting out a legion of demons and sending them into a herd of pigs. In this episode, when we looked closely at the details, we discovered that God allowed the demons to kill the pigs, but these demons did not, or maybe even could not, kill this man. I wonder if Satan had dispatched a whole legion of demons to kill this man and the closest they could get was driving him from society.

However, nothing could stop Jesus from reaching this man. Nothing Satan could do could stop this from happening. While the demons weren’t restricted from killing the pigs, they were powerless to kill this man under God’s protection. It didn’t matter how many demons were present in this man, God’s protection of this man’s life was clearly stronger.

When Jesus wants to heal a life, free a life, or change a heart, the best Satan can muster is no match for a single command from Jesus’ mouth. And from what Jesus did for us on the cross, nothing Satan can muster can steal eternal life away from those God has chosen and called!

We finally break from this pattern as we move forward by jumping ahead and stopping at episode 19. In this episode, we focused on Jesus sending out the 72 disciples to the surrounding towns and villages and we learned that Jesus challenges us to not become proud about the words we speak, because we are simply a messenger for Jesus. In the same way, we should not take rejection personally, because those who reject us aren’t rejecting us as much as they are rejecting Jesus and God.

The mission of God’s people at every point in history has been pointing people back to what God and Jesus have done for us, and pointing us to His arrival and return. While it may be exciting to have the Holy Spirit with us, we should be even more excited that when we follow God, our names are written in the Book of Life in heaven. In the big picture, it won’t matter what we have done for God. What will matter is whether our names are among those who God is planning on redeeming from sin and bringing with Him into eternity!

Jumping forward to episode 23, we looked at Jesus teaching us about our eyes being lamps for our bodies while He challenges some religious leaders. In this episode, we learned that God wants a personal relationship with us. Any leader, teacher, guide, or mentor who wants to get in the way of you growing closer to God has more in common with these religious leaders that Jesus speaks out against than people God actually sends into our lives.

In the very next episode, number 24, Jesus continued His teaching turning His attention onto greed and worry. Included in the passage we covered in this episode is the parable about the man who was blessed and chose to build bigger barns. This episode taught us a number of very powerful truths that we can use to wrap up the first part of our year-end finale. In episode 24, we learned that when we give up our possessions and give money to help others, we rob greed of its power. Greed has power in our lives when our focus is placed on what we own. When we shift our focus onto selling, giving, and focusing on helping others, greed is robbed of its power in our lives.

The biggest benefit of living a generous life of service to others is that our hearts will be stored with where our treasure is, and when our treasure is stored in heaven, our hearts will be there as well!

God desires your heart and mine. When we live lives focused on serving God, helping others, and storing our treasure in heaven, God gets our hearts as well – and God is the only one who is able to restore a sin-stained heart. God solved the sin problem through Jesus, and He is willing to solve our personal sin problem when we give our hearts to Him!