Tuesday, January 30, 2018
Jesus and his companions went to the
town of Capernaum. When the Sabbath day
came, he went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, for
he taught with real authority—quite unlike the teachers of religious law. Suddenly, a man in the synagogue who was
possessed by an evil spirit cried out, “Why are you interfering with
us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to
destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” But Jesus reprimanded him. “Be quiet! Come out of the man,” he ordered. At that, the evil spirit screamed, threw the
man into a convulsion, and then came out of him. Amazement gripped the audience, and they
began to discuss what had happened. “What
sort of new teaching is this?” they asked excitedly. “It has such authority! Even evil spirits obey his orders!” The news about Jesus spread quickly
throughout the entire region of Galilee.
Mark 1:21-28(NLT)
Teaching the teachers and disturbing the demons; this seems
to characterize most everything that happened whenever the
carpenter-turned-rabbi came to town.
A friend who preached at our church this past Sunday, Rev.
Belton Joyner, preached from this text and shared a story from his youth that
illustrates the point of Jesus turning everything on its ear.
When he was about 10 Belton went to youth camp at Lake
Junaluska one summer. It was a typical
youth camp, complete with lots of Bible studies, activities to get the energy
out, mosquitoes, and long cafeteria lines.
Jimmy Best was the slowest of the campers. Out of 117 hungry pre-teens headed for the
chow line Jimmy never got there any faster than the 116th in
line. One afternoon that fried chicken
smell wafted from the cafeteria promising just the best dinner ever. All the boys, including Belton, scrambled to
get to the head of the line. You don’t
want to miss fried chicken! If you were
Jimmy Best you never got the first hot, juicy pieces; you had to settle for what
had been picked-over and left behind. The
line-scrambling was fierce.
In a moment the camp director opened the door and said: Boys, we’re going to do something a little
different tonight. We’re going through
the back door, starting at the back of the line. If you’re first in line, you’ll be last
through…if you’re last in line, you lead the way. All the scrambling to beat everyone else to
the head of the line went gurgling down the drain as Jimmy Best got the best
fried chicken of his camping life.
Belton recounted for us that when Jesus comes near,
everything changes; it can’t be business as usual when the
life-giver shows up. Death, darkness,
and even the unfairness of being too slow in the scramble are not what you find
in Jesus’ Kingdom!
For You Today
Ever been 117th in line? Jesus knows you’re back there, and sometimes He
will turn the line on its ear; He does that kind of stuff.
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a
blessed day!
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