Is your heart still hardened?
1 Mar 26
Today's devotional: taken from YouVersion, Devotions on F.I.R.E. Year One
Readings:
Numbers 24
Numbers 25
Numbers 26
Numbers 27
Mark 8
Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened? (Mark 8:17).
Is your heart still hardened?
Jesus is grieved after displaying His vast power and hearts are unmoved. There is a man in the synagogue on the Sabbath who has a withered hand. Is he there to entrap Jesus? Our Lord displays His emotion because the religious hierarchy is more interested in finding fault with Him than helping people. Before Jesus heals the man, Mark records, “And when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts” (Mark 3:5).
Jesus again shows His deity; this time He walks on the water. His disciples still don’t grasp His person and work. Mark writes, “For they had not understood about the loaves, because their heart was hardened” (Mark 6:52). Following the incident in Mark 8, Jesus heals a blind man as an object lesson revealing the disciples’ obtuseness (Mark 8:22-25).
Employment Point: Ponder Jesus’ person and work lest your heart becomes hard.
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Reflections
I think our hearts are hardened sometimes in small ways that we do not even realised it. For example: refusal to go church because of various reasons; letting ourselves indulge in temptations; insisting of going our own ways or ignoring the Lord despite God’s call, etc..
We may read the bible and think to ourselves, the Israelites are a bunch of irritating people who fail to listen to Moses or the Lord for they just kept complaining about their circumstances and totally forgotten how the Lord had brought them out, providing their every need and they have no lack. However, isn’t that the same with us? The wrongs that we do are no different from the wrongs people do in the past. We read about it, saw how they suffered their consequences but yet we did not learn. In fact, we repeat their mistakes all over again, perhaps just in a different format but it is still, the one of the same.
“Then Balak’s anger burned against Balaam. He struck his hands together and said to him, “I summoned you to curse my enemies, but you have blessed them these three times. Now leave at once and go home! I said I would reward you handsomely, but the Lord has kept you from being rewarded.” Balaam answered Balak, “Did I not tell the messengers you sent me, ‘Even if Balak gave me all the silver and gold in his palace, I could not do anything of my own accord, good or bad, to go beyond the command of the Lord—and I must say only what the Lord says’?”Numbers 24:10-13 NIV
- what a guy and a role model who is not enticed by riches but faithfully obeys what the Lord told him to do.
- May we all be like him, a faithful servant who is obedient to our call.
“Then Balaam got up and returned home, and Balak went his own way.”Numbers 24:25 NIV
- it was great irony that Balak engaged Balaam to curse Israel but all he hears are blessings after blessings. I’m sure he felt defeated, before even engaging with them. All these things happened only because Balak was uncomfortable in the first place. The vast numbers of Israelites staying and surrounding him makes him feel small, threatened but they did not even do anything.
- May we not have feelings like this. Being small or threatened in any circumstances but know and trust that we have a God who is way bigger than us where we can put our trust in.
“Then an Israelite man brought into the camp a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the tent of meeting.”
Numbers 25:6 NIV
- This pair is like some of us believers who claims to be Christian but don’t look or act any bit like a Christian. I’m sure you have met your fair share of such people.
- Not to look at others but more to reflect upon ourselves. Have we too, at times, say or do things that we later reflect that should not be said or done? I’m sure we have. The Lord understands that we are very human. So we do sin and can be really “one kind”. But what causes us to not be who we are supposed to be?
- Are we having bitterness, anger, unforgiveness, jealousy, or any negative mindset? Or are we dealing with any rejection or spiritual issues? I think we need to spend time to seek the Lord and ask Him for wisdom and to search our hearts, speak to us and change us for the better. Else we will forever be stuck in a rut
“He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.”
Mark 8:31-32 NIV
- Even Jesus will have to suffer many things so what more us? If Him being the son of God got rejected the elders, the chief priests, etc., supposedly the people who are supposed to know Him, then what more us?
- We would have to expect people to misunderstand us, think we are crazy maybe, since we don’t do what others are all doing. Our choices may not be a popular one or even a strange one but the only thing we need to make sure is that it is one that is aligned with God’s will
“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”
Mark 8:35-36 NIV
- what good is there to be alive but have no soul. What good is there to own everything on earth and yet not have God. The choice is clear. One is just temporal and the other is eternal. We don’t want to be striving for something on earth only for it to become a passing mist. It is easier to die than to live on the earth. But if it is the will of God for us to continue living, then we ought to seek Him and ask Him what our assignment is.
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The Piercing Question
BY OSWALD CHAMBERS
March 01
Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” — John 21:17
No sin can pierce us as deeply as the question Jesus asks of Simon Peter: “Do you love me?” Sin dulls feelings; the word of God intensifies them. When Jesus asks if we love him, the feelings brought up by his question are so intense they hurt. Do we love him? Or are we fooling ourselves?
It is impossible to be casual when Jesus asks this question. Peter’s early love for Jesus was temperamental, professed in the whim of a moment and a mood. He loved Jesus on a purely natural level, in the way any person loves another who is good. It took the hurt of Jesus’s question for Peter to realize that true love never merely professes anything: it pierces straight to the core of our personality, directing not only our words but everything we do.
Unless we get hurt right out of deceiving ourselves, the word of God isn’t having its way with us. His word is sharp: “sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow” (Hebrews 4:12). Jesus’s question strikes against all our illusions, reaching past our selfish individuality into the very center of our being—a terribly painful thing. But to be hurt like this by Jesus is the most exquisite hurt imaginable. It stings away every delusion and doubt, every selfish thought and worry.
When the Lord sends the hurt of his word to his child, there is no mistaking it. But the point of the hurt is the great point of revelation: it reveals to us how we truly feel about our Lord. “Lord,” said Peter, “you know that I love you” (John 21:17).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
The Christian Church should not be a secret society of specialists, but a public manifestation of believers in Jesus.
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Reflections
I’m sure if we were in Peter’s shoes, we would likely be able to feel the burn of Jesus’s question. For we know what we had done. In the beginning we loudly declare that even if the whole world leave, we will never leave it. But we denied Him three times (maybe even more for myself). If Jesus were to ask me this question, I would feel so ashamed.
However Jesus is not here to shame us. He wants us to realise what true love is. We as humans may not be able to do it but Him, He did it all for us. He knows what it meant to be betrayed, to be forsaken, to be left alone. Yet, He never once turned His back and say, “no, I’m not doing this anymore.” Jesus recognises how severe the pain is and if given a choice, He rather not but still, He chose to obey.
How much do we really love Him? Do we really meant what we say or sing during worship? When we proclaim that we will love Him with all our heart, mind and soul, are we truly doing that or are we paying lip service.
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Lent devotion Day 12/53
taken from YouVersion, Lent for Everyone
Lent for Everyone is a devotional created and written by N.T. (Tom) Wright. For each day of Lent, there is a reading chosen from the Gospel of Matthew, plus a reflection by Wright. These readings have grown out of a project encouraging Lent reading in Northern England. This is the second in a three-volume series based on the Revised Common Lectionary of the Church of England.
Today’s reading:
Psalm 121
WEEK 2: SUNDAY
I must have sung this Psalm a hundred, perhaps a thousand, times before I stopped to think about the famous first verse. (I have seen it carved above doors and mantelpieces in mountainous parts of the country, sometimes in Latin.) 'I lift my eyes to the hills': it evokes a romantic picture of the Psalmist gazing up into craggy heights with awe and wonder. And the old translation made it seem as though the next line ('from whence comes my help') was a reference to the hills themselves: I look up to the hills, because that's where my help comes from.
But of course the opening lines mean nothing of the sort. In fact, it is as the Psalmist looks to the hills that he realizes that they are not the source of his help: his help comes from a much greater place, indeed a person, namely the God who made them (and everything else as well) in the first place. Actually, the Psalmist might even be looking to the hills not as a pleasant and helpful sight, but as a source of danger: Jerusalem, surrounded by hills, could be the victim of a surprise attack. But even if we don't go that far, the opening of the Psalm appears to contrast the hills with the Lord himself, Yahweh, the creator God — even if only to say that if the hills appear great and powerful, the God who made them is far, far more powerful again.
The Psalm then launches out into a sustained praise of God as the one who watches over Israel, moving from the Psalmist's own trust ('my help' in verse 1) to an invitation: Yahweh will do this for you, too. He will not let your foot be moved; he keeps you; and so on. It's worth turning this back into a claim that we make on our own behalf: Gracious Lord, you made heaven and earth; now, I pray, don't let my foot be moved, don't go to sleep while you're watching over me, be my shade on my right hand, keep me from all evil, preserve my going out and coming in. Whether we're on the move, resting, working, leaving home and returning — at every point, the Psalm promises that the world's creator will be with us and guard us.
But if we stop there, we've only made our way into the first level of the Psalm. Lent is a great time for pausing and pondering, for reading more deeply and, perhaps, more slowly. This short Psalm is a good place to see some of the other depths. In particular, we might contemplate the fact that Jesus himself made the Psalms his own prayer book, and doubtless knew most if not all of them by heart. What did it mean for him to pray these, up in the hills perhaps, as a boy, as a young man, as the 30-year-old coming to terms with the strong and clear vocation that it was time to act? What did it mean for him to realize that the unsleeping God, who had guarded him all his life, was now asking him to go to the unguarded place, the ultimate danger zone, the hill outside Jerusalem where he would go to his final great work but would not return home in the normal way?
As we think of Jesus fulfilling and transcending this Psalm, our hearts go out as well to all those who live with the times when it seems as though God has indeed been asleep, as though the sun and the moon are hostile, as though all kinds of evil have won the day, and the comforting business of going out and coming in has been cancelled for ever by sickness, accident or a roadside bomb. Somehow, in Jesus, the promises come true again but at a different level. To see this takes courage and perseverance. As we pray this Psalm with God's suffering world on our hearts, let us pray particularly that the gap which to us seems so large, between the help promised here and the dire needs of the world, will be narrowed. And let us pray that we who take comfort in this Psalm may bring that comfort to others who need it.
TODAY
Almighty God, creator of heaven and earth, in your mercy watch over us and all your people. Give us outward safety and an inward trust in you which will enable us to bring help to others.
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Let’s pray:
Father Lord, we praise and thank You for opening our eyes to your faithful servant Balaam, on how he has obeyed Your calling and only speak what only You have put in his mouth say. That no amount of gold or silver can change his mind. May we too remain steadfast and be obedient to Your commands, to not blatantly say we love You but truly meant it with our actions. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen 🙏🏻
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