The Un-understood You
The Un-understood You
In the last Character of Mark is you! All these characters walked with Jesus but now He is alive with His Father in Heaven and He has sent another like Himself to walk with us.
Mark gives us a last command to go out a preach the gospel to the whole creation! But he does not end it there but continues to say,
“Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In My name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new languages; they will pick up snakes; if they should drink anything deadly, it will never harm them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will get well.”
Mark 16:16-18 HCSB
1st Jesus tells us to preach the Gospel to the whole creation.
What is the Gospel? We have heard that it is the good news of Jesus, which I agree. But I also found this in the Greek concordance, “the glad tidings of salvation through Christ”. Makes me think of the Christmas spirit. We should be in the Christmas mood all year long. For that baby in the manger has given us eternal communication to God via the cross.
What about preaching it to the whole creation? Generally, creation is anything created but here in Mark, it is referred to as understood to be all people. But I would like to propose an idea. What would happen if our house heard the gospel? What would happen if no one was around and you preached to the trees? Now, before you stop reading hear me out. Our house nor the forest needs to repent and be baptized but in this way, we get to hear it with our own two ears. And then we get practice in saying the gospel out loud before we need to share it with a friend, co-worker, family member, or stranger. The second benefit to preaching the glad tidings of Jesus bout be that the devil and demons around us would flee and leave us alone.
2nd we are told that those who believe and are baptized will be saved. I do not want to get into the debate about baptism being connected to salvation, but we as followers of Jesus should follow His example and be baptized.
Now, we need to know that there are three parts to salvation. We were saved by Jesus’ work of redemption on the cross. We are being saved each and every day of our lives by the grace of God. And we will be saved if we endure to the end of our lives. Salvation is not a one-and-done event but it is not a repeat-it everyday event. The work of Jesus was a one-and-done event. Our work to better our lives in the sight of God is our repeat-it everyday event. And when we get to the end and we hear well done good and faithful servant then we will know that our Salvation is complete in God.
3rd we are to drive out demons. Back to the house or forest from earlier. We can practice “in Jesus' name!” when no one else is listening so that we can be more confident in the power of His name when others are around.
4th we will speak in new tongues. We see this happening in Acts 2 when the Holy Spirit filled the believers in the upper room people from roughly 20 different tongues heard the gospel in their own tongue. But there is another tongue that Paul expressed and the Holy Spirit speaking through us to God is unintelligible words.
”In the same way the Spirit also joins to help in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with unspoken groanings.“
So through the Holy Spirit, we can talk to both People and God.
5th we can pick up snakes. No thanks, I’d rather not, but through the Spirit and in Jesus' name we can if we have to. But we should not go out looking to tangle with snakes and tempt God. Just my thoughts.
6th we can survive poison. See above and replace snake with poison.
7th we can lay hands on sick people and they will recover. I cannot answer why sometimes it does not happen but as a rule, 9 out of 10 times, God will heal them if we do.
So now I ask do we believe? Are these things happening in our lives? If not then why not? Do you believe it?
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