Friday 12 Feb 2021

February 12: Mark 6:7-13
 
Key Verse: Mark 6:8
These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts.
 
Devotion:
When Jesus sent disciples out to spread the gospel, it was not in any form a big public affair which was going to make anybody rich, well known or an upstanding public figure. Christ was sending them out to reach the real people in the communities they were walking into.
 
Sometimes we get afraid of doing something for God because we fear it will not succeed or the public will stand up against you and you will look like a fool... This does not come from God but from the evil one who is trying to trip us up before we can share God’s Word with others. The instructions for the disciples here were to become totally exposed to the public with nothing to fall back on!
 
Why should God wants us to be totally exposed and without a fallback if He loves us so much? The answer is to help us to understand just how much He is with us. If we never step forward because we are too scared, then all we will live with is the fear. But if we step out and place ourselves wholly in God’s hands, then we will see how much he does look out for us!
 
God does not want us to fall flat, He wants us to succeed in sharing His Word. But He does not want us to think we are fully capable of doing it all without Him! Far from it. We are nothing without God! With Him we are more than capable to doing amazing things – these disciples found out just how much they could do because they were willing to listen to God and obey Jesus first of all.
 
Points to Ponder:
Do you make long and complicated plans to make sure things always work?
 
Will you be willing to simply listen to God and obey?