November 18, 2008
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Bible Reading-Mark 16: (8) Kingdom-Obsessed People believe the stone is rolled away
As I've been trying to resume putting up some posts I'd written about Kingdom-Obsessed People, God keeps bringing new things before me...
I'm just finishing up reading the Gospel of Mark (see Bible reading plan on the side of my homepage). A couple days ago I'd read the last two chapters in Mark and wanted to reread them, so this morning I found myself in Mark 16:1-3:
Now when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, that they might come and anoint Him. 2 Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. 3 And they said among themselves, “Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?”“Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?”I read that phrase several times and then began to ask myself a series of questions:
Do I believe the stone is rolled away?
Why do I live as if the stone is not rolled away?
Do I believe the stone is rolled away?
How often do I live as if Christ is not risen?
Do I believe the stone is rolled away?
Why do I often choose to live as if His resurrection life has not been made available to me?
Do I believe the stone is rolled away?
Do I heed God's command to be filled with Spirit?
Do I believe the stone is rolled away?
Do I have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof?
Do I believe the stone is rolled away?
Does my life bear fruit to show that the resurrection life of Christ has swept in to regenerate me and make me a new creation?
Do I believe the stone is rolled away?Am I satisfied with remaining lukewarm or tepid?
Do I believe the stone is rolled away?Am I content to come to Jesus to hear His teaching and admire His example, but do little to avail myself of His vivifying resurrection power?
Do I believe the stone is rolled away?
Do I consider myself dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord?Do I believe the stone is rolled away?
Do I walk in the Spirit, or do I keep fulfilling the lust of the flesh?
Do I believe the stone is rolled away?
Does sin continue to have dominion over me?Do I believe the stone is rolled away?
Do I present myself to God as being alive from the dead?Do I believe the stone is rolled away?
How do I quench and grieve the Spirit and limit the Holy One of Israel?
Do I believe the stone is rolled away?Do I know the power of His resurrection?
Do I believe the stone is rolled away?
Let me not be content with Jesus as a wise teacher, who merely taught the beatitudes.
Let me not be content with Jesus as a moral man, who set the example of a godly life.
Let me see the Jesus who defeated sin, Satan and death.
Let me see the One declared to be the Son of God with power by His resurrection.
Let me see Jesus in the midst and handle and touch Him who was raised from the dead.
Let me know the power of His resurrection.Do I believe the stone is rolled away?
15 Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16 do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 18 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power 20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.
22 And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Ephesians 1:15-23.Do I believe the stone is rolled away?
Let me see that the stone has been rolled away.
Let me see Jesus Christ raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of the throne of Majesty.
Let me fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
Let me consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.
Let me look to our sanctifier and the pioneer of our salvation.
Let me know the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe.Do I believe the stone is rolled away? Have I looked up and seen the stone has been rolled away?
But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away—for it was very large. 5 And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen!"Do I believe the stone is rolled away? Have I looked up and seen the stone has been rolled away?
Or, like the disciples, do I not believe?
Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons. 10 She went and told those who had been with Him, as they mourned and wept. 11 And when they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe.
12 After that, He appeared in another form to two of them as they walked and went into the country. 13 And they went and told it to the rest, but they did not believe them either.
Do I believe the stone is rolled away? Have I looked up and seen the stone has been rolled away? Do I believe He is alive? Do I live like He is alive?
Or, like the disciples, do I not believe, and hear Jesus' rebuke?
Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen.Keep me from an evil heart of unbelief and a hard heart...no different than my fathers who sinned and whose corpses fell in the wilderness:
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:
“Today, if you will hear His voice,
8 Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
In the day of trial in the wilderness,
9 Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me,
And saw My works forty years.
10 Therefore I was angry with that generation,
And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
And they have not known My ways.’
11 So I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest.’”12 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; 13 but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, 15 while it is said:
“Today, if you will hear His voice,
Hebrews 3:7-15.
Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”"...But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 23 Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes." 24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”"
"...But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. 23 And Jesus said to him, If you can! All things are possible for one who believes. 24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, I believe; help my unbelief! Mark 9:22b-24, ESV.George Whitefield wrote of our need to "experimentally know The Power of Christ's Resurrection":
What concerns us most to be assured of, and which is theSecond
thing I was to speak to, is, Whether we have experimentally known the power of his resurrection; that is, Whether or not we have received the Holy Ghost, and by his powerful operations on our hearts have been raised from the death of sin, to a life of righteousness and true holiness.
It was this, the great apostle [Paul] was chiefly desirous to know. The resurrection of Christ's body he was satisfied would avail him nothing, unless he experienced the power of it in raising his dead soul.
For another, and that a chief end of our blessed Lord's rising from the dead, was to enter heaven as our representative, and to send down the Holy Ghost to apply that redemption he had finished on the cross, to our hearts, by working an entire change in them.
Without this, Christ would have died in vain. For it would have done us no service to have had his outward righteousness imputed to us, unless we had an inward inherent righteousness wrought in us. Because, being altogether conceived and born in sin, and consequently unfit to hold communion with an infinitely pure and holy God, we cannot possibly be made meet to see or enjoy him, till a thorough renovation has passed upon our hearts.
Without this, we leave out the Holy Ghost in the great work of our redemption. But as we were made by the joint concurrence and consultation of the blessed trinity; and as we were baptized in their name, so must all of them concur in our salvation: As the Father made, and the Son redeemed, so must the Holy Ghost sanctify and seal us, or otherwise we have believed in vain.
This then is what the apostle means by the “Power of Christ's resurrection,” and this is what we are as much concerned experimentally to know, as that He rose at all.
...that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3:10-11.Are we desirous to know the power of Christ's resurrection?
Have we experienced the power of Christ's resurrection?
God forbid that we leave out the Holy Ghost in the great work of our redemption,
for without this, Christ would have died in vain.
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:1-11.
* * *Dear Father, Your desire for us is to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing [we] may have life in His name (John 20:31).
Do we believe the stone is rolled away?
Have we looked up and seen the stone has been rolled away?
Do we believe He is alive?
Do we live like He is alive?For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him. Luke 20:38.
Teach us how to no longer live, but to die.
Teach us how to no longer live, but to be crucified with Christ,
So we might let the resurrected Christ live in us.
So we might live by faith in the Son of God.
So we might live to You.
For You have raised us up together with Christ
and seated us with Him in heavenly places.But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus...Ephesians 2:4-6.Apply the redemption You purchased for us on the cross to our hearts.
Work a mighty and thorough renovation on our hearts
that we might be fit to see and enjoy You.
For apart from You
our bones are dry,
our hope is lost,
we ourselves are cut off!
You have promised to put Your Spirit in us so we might live.
Breathe on me that I might live!
Breathe on Your Church that we might live!Ezekiel 37:1-4The hand of the LORD came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. 2 Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry. 3 And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
So I answered, “O Lord GOD, You know.”
4 Again He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: “Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. 6 I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the LORD.”’”
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over; but there was no breath in them.
9 Also He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.”’” 10 So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.
11 Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. 13 Then you shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. 14 I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken it and performed it,” says the LORD.’”You may also be interested in reading:
Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.Scripture quotations marked "ESV" are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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