SCRIPTURE: Mark 4
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables” [Mark 4:11]. When Jesus spoke in public, He kept His message simple, in stories that made people think. He did not explain His stories, He was intentionally elusive. Its not that He didn’t want people to understand, but He was separating between the genuine seekers and the shallow intellectuals. People with open, seeking hearts would be drawn by the stories; people with closed, prideful hearts would dismiss them as silly, below them.
The reason the secret of the kingdom was given to the disciples was because they had already demonstrated their openness by following Jesus. All those who were drawn to Jesus learned more, because He went on to explain things to them. Notice the kind of people that drew closer to Jesus – many women, ‘sinners’ (like tax collectors, prostitutes) and other societal nobodies who were desperate for God for grace, for truth. And notice who didn’t come to Jesus – the religious, the wealthy, the comfortable, the intellectuals, those who were already full of themselves. There were some notable exceptions, of the poor who rejected Jesus and the wealthy who came to Him. But what all the people who came to Him had in common was their genuine, desperate desire for God, grace and truth.
The stories Jesus tells are not hard to explain. They seem obvious to me. But understanding the message and receiving it are two different things. Like the seed in the parable of the sower, the message is received by many, but only a few (the ‘good soil’) actually result in a fruitful life. In the end, its not whether we understand or believe the message of Jesus, its whether we act on it, or allow it to act on us – whether it results in life-change.
It boils down to who we think Jesus is. In the storm, the disciples discovered there was more to Jesus than they even realized – and they had chosen to follow Him! The same is true for us. We do not fully appreciate Who Jesus is, we have much to learn and grow in this regard. The seed of Jesus’ message is still be scattered in our lives, but only those who genuinely, desperately seek it will discover the secrets of Jesus, and the kingdom.
One final thought. It’s not enough to hear the message, we need to talk it through with Jesus, and with other Jesus followers. As Jesus explained His message to His disciples then, He will explain it to us today (by His Spirit in us) if we take the time to sit with Him and talk it through with Him.
PRAYER:
Lord, may I sit with You each day, to talk through what You say to me.