Day 56

Leviticus 16:29–18:30; Mark 7:24–8:10; Psalm 41:1-13; Proverbs 10:15-16

TODAY IN MARK’S Gospel, we encountered a recurring theme in the ministry of Jesus. A deaf man had been brought to Jesus in hopes of healing, and indeed, his hearing was restored.

“Jesus told the crowd not to tell anyone, but the more he told them not to, the more they spread the news” (Mark 7:36). Why did He continually ask people to keep the miraculous a secret? On a practical level, perhaps it was Jesus’ way of crowd control. But there must be more to it than that; the crowds were already pressing in on Jesus —to the point that He had to sneak away for personal space. Perhaps what is hidden in plain sight is that Jesus didn’t make a big deal out of the miraculous because He was demonstrating what was supposed to be normal to a person who lives as they were created.

Jesus was the first sinless human being to walk on planet Earth since the very first man and woman —Adam and Eve. In His humanity, Jesus was a picture of what we were created to be before sin’s devastation robbed us of our normal created state. We were created to be people who look remarkably like Jesus. And because of Jesus, sin has no claim on who we are any longer —unless we allow it. We must understand that to be Christlike literally means to be like Jesus. One of the ways we do this is by understanding that we are a miracle in motion in all we think, do, and say —if we’ll allow the Spirit of Christ within to collaborate in our lives. This is supposed to be our normal.

WORSHIP:

Praise the LORD, the God of Israel, who lives from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and amen!