The 260 Journey

Day 42

Today’s Reading: Mark 14

A man who felt convicted for lying on his last tax return wrote this letter to the IRS:

Dear IRS: Enclosed you will find a check for $150. I cheated on my income tax return last year and have not been able to sleep ever since. If I still have trouble sleeping, I will send you the rest.

His problem: he is waiting for more sleepless nights to bring closure. He is not fixing it on the first go around. That first sleepless night should have been a signal.

In today’s reading, we see the importance of handling things in the first go around. And it has to do with Peter and a crowing rooster.

Let me read to you about this dreadful Thursday night:

Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away, because it is written, ‘I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.’ But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.” But Peter said to Him, “Even though all may fall away, yet I will not.” And Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you, that this very night, before a rooster crows twice, you yourself will deny me three times.” But Peter kept saying insistently, “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!” And they all were saying the same thing also. (Mark 14:27-31)

And between verses 66-71 we read that Peter denied Jesus three times. One of them being with him cursing and swearing to make sure the people knew he was not a disciple.

And then the fulfillment of what Jesus said to Peter came to him: “Immediately a rooster crowed a second time. And Peter remembered how Jesus had made the remark to him, ‘Before a rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times.’ And he began to weep” (verse 72).

Prominent American Methodist minister Halford Luccock said: “In Christian experience, great living begins in tears. It is God’s starting point. When Peter broke down and wept, all pride, of which he had much, and all self-sufficiency and self-trust dropped away from him.”

Listen to Jesus’ warning again in verse 30—“Before a rooster crows twice.” Then in verse 72, after Peter’s third denial, it says, “A rooster crowed a second time” and at that second crowing, Peter began to weep because he remembered what Jesus had said.

Sometimes we don’t take seriously the Word of God until it is finally fulfilled. That is a dangerous way to live.

I had a rooster that lived next to me in Detroit, right in the heart of the inner city. It was the craziest thing. My neighbors had chickens and a rooster that perched in a tree. That rooster would crow every morning at 5 a.m. and every morning, one of my roommates would say, “Oh, Jesus, don’t let me deny You today.”

Amazing how that rooster reminded him of that story. That rooster’s crow made Peter recall every word of the Master. No sooner had he completed his third denial then the rooster crowed. So my question to Peter: What were you thinking at rooster crow #1?

We read about #2, which was after the full denial. But what about the first crow? What went through Peter’s mind?

Obviously he did not heed it. It does not seem that it slowed him down. We don’t have a verse that shows Peter thinking, Hmm, this can’t be a coincidence. . . . The Rabbi said something along these lines . . . that I would deny Him and that the signal would be a rooster’s crow.

But nothing. No brake lights for Peter. This was not some new convert. This was a disciple trained by Jesus Himself.

It just goes to show the power of fear, sin, and compromise. As James S. Stewart said in The Strong Name:

It might seem natural to suppose that every time a man sins he would know a little more about sin, its nature and its methods. Actually the exact reverse is true. Every time he sins he is making himself less capable of realizing what sin is, less likely to recognize that he is, in fact, a sinner; for the ugly thing (and this, I feel sure, has never been sufficiently grasped), for the really diabolical thing about sin is that it perverts human judgment.

Hence every time any of us sins, we are making it not more but less probable for us to appreciate what sin is, and therefore not more but less likely that we shall feel there is anything to be forgiven. Every time I reject some voice in conscience, I am making it certain that next time that voice is going to speak not more but less imperiously and convincingly.

I think crow #1 was the shout from God to say, Put on the brakes. God’s Word is true. Stop here and don’t go any further!

To hear crow #1 is the canon ball over the bow of the boat. It shouts that God is right!

Listen to him. No one jumps to #2 without first receiving a #1 warning.

There are nine words in the Greek language for sin. But the one that always catches my attention is the trespass. Have you ever violated a “no trespassing” sign? You have to do a lot to get by it. You have to climb through barbed wire. Climb over a fence. Go by the blaring sign.

Trespass means you have to really work to sin. God is active in wanting to warn and protect you.

Though you may not be as fortunate as I was to live next to a rooster in Detroit, it does not mean you don’t get the same effect. Let me give you a rooster crow that you will be sure not to miss: It is the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

A conviction does not stop you from doing anything, it just keeps you from enjoying it. I love this young boy’s definition of conviction: “Something that makes you tell your mother before your sister does.”

The Holy Spirit begins to bring a feeling inside of us that something is not right. This is a crow #1 protection. Before a failure turns into a fall, He will convict us.

The old churches built in America some hundreds of years ago were built with the steeple that had weather cocks on them. They were put there to remind the people that even Peter, the first among the apostles, fell into the deep grievous sin of pride and denied his Lord.

I wonder what church members and boards would say today if a pastor put the rooster back on the church so folks would not backslide. We might hear:

“That’s so negative!”
“Why remind us of failure and sin?”
“You are so judgmental!”

But I would be thinking, God is always right, listen to Him.

Day 40

Today’s Reading: Mark 12

Today’s reading starts with a parable, a little story with a big meaning. Jesus tells it in nine verses but the actual story covers almost three thousand years. It is God telling His story from the beginning to ending with His Son coming to earth.

As we read this passage together, remember that Mark 11:27 says Jesus is in the Jerusalem temple telling this story to chief priests, scribes, and elders.

[Jesus] began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard and put a wall around it, and dug a vat under the wine press and built a tower, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey. At the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, in order to receive some of the produce of the vineyard from the vine-growers. They took him, and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent them another slave, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. And he sent another, and that one they killed; and so with many others, beating some and killing others. He had one more to send, a beloved son; he sent him last of all to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those vine-growers said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’ They took him, and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vine-growers, and will give the vineyard to others. (Mark 12:1-9)

Verse 6 is the fast forward to the present of this story—the vineyard owner (the father) had one more to send, his beloved son, believing they would respect him. Yet the story ends with them killing the owner’s son.

Who do you think Jesus is speaking about?

It is His own bio.

In fact, to make sure there is no misunderstanding, Jesus tells these religious Old Testament experts that this story is connected with the Scriptures they know so well as He quotes from Psalm 118:

Have you not even read this Scripture: “The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief corner stone; this came about from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes”? (Mark 12:10-11)

Jesus reminds us in the story that this is God’s planet and we are just stewards of it.

I don’t know if you have ever rented a house, a piece of property, an apartment that belonged to you and the renters forgot that it isn’t their property? From the way they treated it and even becoming lax in their rent payments, they assumed the role of owner.

I am always reminded of the old 1901 hymn, “This Is My Father’s World”:

This is my Father’s world:
O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world:
Why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King: let the heavens ring!
God reigns, let the earth be glad!

We are the renters. God is the owner. This is our Father’s world, we are stewards of it.

It’s always dangerous when the renters act as though they are the owners—and it is especially dangerous when the owner is God. It’s easy for us to forget and act like we’re owners with our money and tithing when we give God our 10 percent. But it all belongs to God. We get to steward the other 90 percent. The same thing is true of our lives, which the apostle Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NIV): “You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

When some women begin to announce that their bodies are their own—“my body, my choice”—regarding abortion practices and laws, nothing could be further from the truth. The renters are acting like owners. Those ladies and legislators are all bought with a price.

In order to say those kinds of words . . . you have to kill the Son.

One fundamental problem is that they did—but He rose again! The renters are still renters. We have to honor the Son.

Years ago, I heard an amazing story about a wealthy man who had one son, whom he loved dearly. He was a lover of art and he taught his son to love fine art. Because he was wealthy, he and his son amassed a valuable private collection of priceless works of art.

When he was old enough, the son joined the marines and was deployed to Vietnam, where he was killed in action. The father’s heart was broken.

Several years later, when the wealthy man died, his estate planned to auction off his works of art, which were estimated to be worth in the millions of dollars. The day of the auction, with art dealers crowding in waiting to bid on the Van Goghs and the Monets, the lawyer announced that before any of the valuable art could be auctioned, the deceased had left specific instructions that the portrait of his son must be auctioned off first.

“Get on with it,” the impatient art dealers complained. “Get that picture out of the way so we can bid on the real art!”

The auctioneer held up the painting. “Who will give me one hundred dollars for the picture of the son?” No one replied. Finally, a friend of the son’s who was also a soldier said, “I’ll give you twenty dollars for it.”

“Twenty once,” the auctioneer said, looking around the room. “Twenty twice. Sold for twenty dollars.”

At that moment, the rich man’s attorney stepped forward again and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, there will no more bidding. My client left secret and specific instructions that whoever bought the painting of his son would receive all the other works of art at no additional charge. . . To quote the words in his last will and testament, he wrote, ‘Whoever chooses my son, gets it all.’ This concludes the auction.”

Whoever chooses God’s Son gets it all.

As Romans 10:11 (TLB) reminds us: “The Scriptures tell us that no one who believes in Christ will ever be disappointed.”

Not church.
Not religion.
Not a denomination.

Only the Son.

Day 41

Today’s Reading: Mark 13

It seems that in Jesus’ ministry, when something significant was going to happen, He took with Him the same three guys: Peter, James, and John. It is as if their names roll off your tongue. Those names just sound right together.

Those three men saw and heard things the other nine close disciples missed out on. When Jesus went to the Mount of Transfiguration, for instance, He took with Him Peter, James, and John. When He went into a room to raise a little girl from the dead, He went in with Peter, James, and John. In the garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus hit His agony moment and moved from the twelve, He asked those three to move with Him.

And then something crazy happened . . . someone broke through the clique: “As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew were questioning Him privately” (Mark 13:3, emphasis added).

Somehow Andrew broke through and got entrance into the private club. It may be late but he made it. And the four of them—Peter, James, John, and . . . Andrew—all asked Jesus privately about the end times. The four received an eschatology lesson. Move aside Jack Van Impe and Tim LaHaye! And in giving them this lesson, He taught us as well.

Marty Duren gave five good pitfalls to avoid when talking about the coming of Jesus:

1. Making every news item a sign of the end times.

2. Playing “Name the Antichrist:” in the 1970s and ’80s, this was huge. People claimed Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, the pope, even some secret guy in the Middle East were being raised up as the Antichrist.

3. Neglecting the original audience. This is important; some of the things Jesus said was for the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem by Titus and not for “you” and the twenty-first century.

4. Setting dates for the coming of Jesus. As C. S. Lewis said, “Precisely because we cannot predict the moment, we must be ready at all moments.”

5. Overemphasizing an American role: people have gone so far as to say that “eagle’s wings” in the Bible is the American mascot. Please. God sees every nation as a drop in the bucket (see Isaiah 40:15-17).

So how do we deal with Bible prophecy like this Olivet discourse that Jesus gave in a private discussion not to three men but to four? We need to hear about the end times and the rapture and the judgment to come, but we must do it the right way. It was so important, Mark dedicated this whole chapter to their private conversation. The book of Daniel, the book of Revelation, and the Olivet discourses from Mark 13 are important but should be approached carefully.

If you want to understand the second coming and interpret things correctly, then be a student of the first coming. We see how God thinks when He sent His Son the first time. Read the Old Testament prophecies and images and see how this worked in the first coming. God is consistent. There are more than three hundred prophesies of times and places and events when Jesus came the first time. Learn the way God predicts the future. If you are not a student of the first coming, you will embellish Bible verses for the second coming.

And finally, I like what Charles H. Spurgeon said, which we can apply to contemplating end times. It is really what the four disciples did in their conversation with Jesus. Spurgeon said that prayer is the best way to open up the Scriptures.

Brethren in the ministry, you who are teachers in the Sunday school and all of you who are learners in the college of Christ Jesus, I pray you remember that prayer is your best means of study—like Daniel you shall understand the dream and the interpretation when you have sought God. And like John you shall see the seven seals of the precious Truth of God unloosed after you have wept much. “Yes, if you cry after knowledge and lift up your voice for understanding: if you seek her as silver and search for her as for hid treasures: then shall you understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.” (Prov 2:3-6)

Stones are not broken except by an earnest use of the hammer. And the stone-breaker usually goes down on his knees. Use the hammer of diligence and let the knees of prayer be exercised, too, and there is not a stony doctrine in Revelation which is useful for you to understand which will not fly into shivers under the exercise of prayer and faith. Martin Luther said it best, “To have prayed well is to have studied well.” You may force your way through anything with the leverage of prayers.

You want to know about end times? Study the first coming and the Scriptures and pray, seeking God’s wisdom.

Day 39

Today’s Reading: Mark 11

Sometime ago, Dave Hagler, who works as an umpire in a recreational baseball league, was pulled over for driving too fast in the snow in Boulder, Colorado. He tried to talk the officer out of giving him a ticket by telling him how worried he was about insurance and how he’s normally a very safe driver, and so on. The officer said that if he didn’t like receiving the ticket, he could take the matter to court.

At the first game in the next baseball season, Dave was umpiring behind the plate when the first batter approached. And can you believe it, it was the policeman. As the officer was about to step into the batter’s box, they recognized each other and offered a long pause.

Finally the officer asked, “So how did the thing with the ticket go?”

Dave said, “You’d better swing at everything.”

Someone once said, “‘I can forgive, but I cannot forget,’ is only another way of saying, ‘I cannot forgive.’”

I think Dave couldn’t let it go. And all of that affected a recreational softball game.

Unforgiveness is underestimated. Marilyn Hickey tells us that a person who lives in unforgiveness does three things:

1. Curses the offense.
2. Nurses the offense.
3. Rehearses the offense.

In today’s reading, we focus on unforgiveness—and Jesus tells us there is a lot at stake when someone won’t forgive. It’s bigger than a softball game; instead, it infects the most powerful weapon we are given on this planet: prayer. Listen to what Jesus instructs us about prayer and unforgiveness:

Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your transgressions.” (Mark 11:25-26)

Today’s Scripture mentions one of these problems that breaks the communication line. It’s similar to a circuit breaker in a house. A circuit breaker in your house is an electrical device that interrupts the flow of electricity from one site to the other. Prayer circuit breakers are things in our lives that interrupt or hinder our communication with God. So when prayer is not working, something broke the circuit.

There are two commanding moments in this chapter on the power and importance of prayer. In verse 17, Jesus says that His house should be called a house of prayer. I think this is really missing today. Today, His house is a house of worship, preaching, teaching, serving, but not many believers have placed the importance on prayer on their church.

Jesus also tells us in verses 22-24 the power of prayer:

Jesus answered saying to them, “Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.”

One little thing can hinder mountains being put into the ocean—and that is unforgiveness. Jesus said all things for which we pray, we must believe we have received them and they will be granted—except when we don’t forgive our spouse for disrespecting us yesterday. Or a friend for breaking a confidence. Or a supervisor for yelling at us in a staff meeting, which embarrassed us.

The bigger question is this: is unforgiveness really worth it?

If my not forgiving people stops me from seeing God answer my prayer and short circuits my prayer, I need to let my unforgiveness go. There’s too much at stake.

Don’t try to ask big when unforgiveness is big in you. Every time you want to hold on to an offense, just think, If I do this, I get no mountains in the ocean.

Norman Vincent Peale related how that, as a boy, he once bought a large cigar that he began to smoke. He was feeling bold until he saw his father approach him on the street. He tried to hide the cigar behind his back. Searching desperately for something to say, he made a certain request of his father. “My father’s voice wasn’t harsh when he answered; it was simply firm. ‘Norman,’ he said, ‘one of the first lessons you should learn is this: never make a petition and at the same time try to hide a smoldering disobedience behind your back.’”

Next time you go to God in prayer and you realize you are harboring something that you need to forgive, do it quickly and get those mountains thrown into oceans. Nothing is worse than asking our Father for something with the glaring disobedience of unforgiveness holding on.

Day 38

Today’s Reading: Mark 10

Today’s reading is a tough one. Jesus gets a test . . . a test about marriage and divorce.

Before we dive into this chapter, listen to these poignant words from Augustine, which apply to what we’re studying today: “If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.”

Now let’s read about Jesus’ test: “Some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing Him, and began to question Him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife” (Mark 10:2).

There are some hot-potato issues in the church—and one of those is about divorce and remarriage. Not only is this controversial today in the body of Christ, it was also in the first century when Jesus was here on the earth.

It’s important to note that not every question is from an honest heart. Not every questioner is asking to get a truthful answer. Some people ask to see if you agree with them. That is why the divorce question here is not for the religious people to learn the truth, to discover insight or wisdom, but to see if Jesus agrees with them. They already had their opinions and now they want to test Jesus.

To test assumes two things: (1) you are the teacher; (2) you already know the answer, so you’re seeing if your student knows the answer. Then you grade them on their answer. Think of the audacity—they are testing the omniscient God to see if He knows, not the right answer, but their answer.

That is really the issue today. When was the last time you asked Jesus a question about your struggling marriage? When was the last time you sought direction and theological wisdom from Him?

So many times we will go to a book, a pastor—someone who has already decided for us. But what about this issue? Have you ever asked Jesus: Should I divorce?

Most never ask Jesus if we should, instead we ask for help once it’s already decided. Then we ask for Him to bless our already decided-upon plans.

If this is what you do, then this is the painful truth: you are testing Jesus just as these religious people did.

So how did Jesus respond?

First, we need to see it from a biblical basis and not a culture or society basis. With all the divorce that is happening today, people try to adjust Jesus’ words to fit our epidemic of marriages falling apart. It’s like our government that can’t stop drugs so they legalize it to make that the best answer. But that is not an answer to a problem.

So if half of the marriages in the church end in divorce, as some statistics suggest, do we have to adjust Jesus’ words based on the twenty-first-century marriage problem? I don’t think so. Some have cited successful remarriages as their reason that divorce can’t be wrong. They argue, “So and so got remarried and look at them after twenty-five years. It must be okay.”

But we must be careful that we don’t adjust Scripture to fit our beliefs or wants. Instead we must take Jesus’ words as they stand:

He answered and said to them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”
(Mark 10:3-11)

Here’s my summary based on Jesus’ words: Divorce was instituted by Moses. The motive for divorce was that our hearts are hard. Therefore, the reason for divorce was because we have hard hearts. Every marriage, no matter the struggle or the sin or the offense, can have a miracle ending with God if our hearts are soft.

God’s intention from the beginning of creation was for two to become one flesh—and what God has joined together, no one should separate.

I heard a counselor once say to a young woman contemplating marriage: “Do not accept a man’s proposal until you have successfully worked through at least one significant disagreement. Better yet, make it a heated argument that leaves one of you preferably in tears. If you have never been in the thick of a serious conflict with that person, you don’t really know their heart. And marriage needs a soft heart to face hard situations.”

So let me try to make this applicable. Divorce is an option—but it occurs because of a person becoming hard hearted.

Just look at the statistics on divorce and remarriage. Statistics have shown that in the United States, 50 percent of first marriages end in divorce. The number raises to 67 percent of second marriage, and 73 percent of third marriages. Why do the percentages go up each time a person gets married? Because they very likely have not addressed the hardness issue.

So now the question is . . . where is your heart today? Are you working toward a soft and tender heart? Or have you allowed your heart to become hardened?

Someone said it like this: “How do you fix your troubled marriage? You don’t need a change of partners, but a change in partners.”

We are only halfway through our scene with Jesus, though. When the disciples hear Jesus’ response to the Pharisees, they ask for more insight. Notice verse 10: “In the house the disciples began questioning Him about this again.” They are not testing Him, but genuinely questioning Him. They wanted answers. That was the difference between them and the religious leaders.

As you read Jesus’ response, think about what that means for you in your marriage, if you are married, or if someday you want to pursue marriage. Ask Jesus what He means, just as the disciples did.