by Elizabeth Burgard Fulgaro (c) 2010
Mark 3:20 (Amplified) 20 Then He went to a house [probably Peter’s], but a throng came together again, so that Jesus and His disciples could not even take food.
Once supernatural miracles began to flow through Jesus, wherever He went a large group gathered and in fact, followed Him. (When He would cross the Sea of Galilee, they would often be waiting for Him on the other side.) But they were following Him for the wrong reasons. First, few came to Jesus because they were seeking to know God and His Way. Most came because they wanted something from Jesus. They were not interested in knowing Him or His Way; they just wanted Him to solve their earthly problems (the ones which plagued them during their physical lives, such as money worries, illness or disability). Still others looked to Him to save them from the unrighteous government (authorities) under which they lived and become their earthly King for their generation.
Of course, Jesus was capable of solving and doing all these, but Jesus came to be and do so much more. Jesus came to reveal the Kingdom of God as God’s ambassador, re-presenting the Father for all to see. Jesus was His Light to the world. Jesus came to be the sacrifice required to reconcile all who would come to God forever. Jesus was (and is) concerned with the current well-being of all because He loved them (and loves us). But His purpose was to enable them (and us) to be restored to fellowship with the Father forever.
The question to ask ourselves is, why are we following Jesus? Is it just to get the answers to our earthly worries, or do we really want to know Him? All earthly illnesses eventually will end in physical death. All earthly needs will be no more. God remains and is.
He desires relationship with us. Do we seek relationship with Him or just His power doing what we want when we want? True, He is invisible and it can be hard at the beginning of our seeking to picture having relationship with an invisible entity who no one can prove is even there. However, the Spirit of God in our midst is as real as the physical presence of Jesus was when He walked on earth. Through the Holy Spirit, God promises to speak to us and to guide and direct us in the way we should go, if we will only listen, seek to be able to hear, believe, trust and follow. How incredible would it be to have every moment of every day guided and led by the God of the universe! Not only is this possible, but promised – again, only to those who seek.
Jesus did not explain Himself to everyone. But He did to those who sought. Those who sought to understand Jesus found God’s Truth and with it freedom and purpose for their earthly lives. They were freed from being under the bondage of human definitions of purpose and success because their focus was no longer on just their earthly existence. They were freed from the bondage of seeing life from the limited, deceptive perspective of from here to physical death as they embraced seeing their lives from God’s eternal perspective where this is merely the time of our ambassadorship for Him in a foreign land until he calls us home.
God frees us from the fear of earthly existence to be citizens of His kingdom on earth now, where we walk in His incomprehensible peace because we trust Him to fulfill His promises. For instance, He promises to protect and provide “enough” for us until He calls us home, and to use all things for good in light of eternity. This means no matter how dark the moment of our earthly lives, God can use us if we let Him to be the lamp which carries His Light into the dark places where He can reveal Himself through us to people who might otherwise not have the opportunity to see Him.
The joy we experience in life to a great extent will be dictated by our attitude toward relationship with God. If all we want is for Him to answer our prayers our way instead of according to His superior, supreme, eternal perspective, then we will be like the seeds from the parable of the sower told by Jesus, which fall on stony ground, or in the thorns. If on the other hand we seek His perspective and embrace His Way, He will grow us and use us to produce an abundant harvest for the everlasting, all-good Kingdom of God.
Mark 3:3-10, 13-20
3 Give attention to this! Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And as he was sowing, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Other seed [of the same kind] fell on ground full of rocks, where it had not much soil; and at once it sprang up, because it had no depth of soil; 6 And when the sun came up, it was scorched, and because it had not taken root, it withered away. 7 Other seed [of the same kind] fell among thorn plants, and the thistles grew and pressed together and utterly choked and suffocated it, and it yielded no grain. 8 And other seed [of the same kind] fell into good (well- adapted) soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing, and yielded up to thirty times as much, and sixty times as much, and even a hundred times as much as had been sown. 9 And He said, He who has ears to hear, let him be hearing [and let him consider, and comprehend]. 10 And as soon as He was alone, those who were around Him, with the Twelve [apostles], began to ask Him about the parables. …13 And He said to them, Do you not discern and understand this parable? How then is it possible for you to discern and understand all the parables? 14 The sower sows the Word. 15 The ones along the path are those who have the Word sown [in their hearts], but when they hear, Satan comes at once and [by force] takes away the message which is sown in them. 16 And in the same way the ones sown upon stony ground are those who, when they hear the Word, at once receive and accept and welcome it with joy; 17 And they have no real root in themselves, and so they endure for a little while; then when trouble or persecution arises on account of the Word, the immediately are offended (become displeased, indignant, resentful) and they stumble and fall away. 18 And the ones sown among the thorns are others who hear the Word; 19 Then the cares and anxieties of the world and distractions of the age, and the pleasure and delight and false glamour and deceitfulness of riches, and the craving and passionate desire for other things creep in and choke and suffocate the Word, and it becomes fruitless. 20 And those sown on the good (well-adapted) soil are the ones who hear the Word and receive and accept and welcome it and bear fruit – some thirty times as much as was sown, some sixty times as much, and some [even] a hundred times as much.
For books, worship cds, Bible studies and teachings written by Elizabeth Burgard Fulgaro or to schedule her to come speak to your group please visit www.holyspiritpress.org For information on her work for the military and their families please visit www.eaglesnestfoundation.org Eagles Nest Foundation is a 501(c)3 corporation.
