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Did Jesus just call this woman a dog? Let us start by putting this hold thing into the context of the day. This is the culture context not the Jesus context, in Jesus day the Jews divided the world into two types of people Jews and Greeks. If you were a foreigner you probably would be called a Greek. Then on top of that woman in this culture were not slaves but they were just a little bit above them. They were all most a belonging or property and not a person of value, Jesus places value on everyone. The Jews thought they were special children of God, which they are, but they thought that they were the only children of God. Jesus was a Jew and He knew the Jewish culture, but He did not think like a Jew He thought like God. When this woman can to Jesus for the casting out of this demon from her daughter Jesus tested her faith. He did this by using the culture and language of the day. For Him to use the term dog was very much in line for the time and culture. This woman passed the test with flying colors, and Jesus cast out the demons there on the spot. I don’t want you to get caught up the terms use because the point is her faith. Because of her faith Jesus showed compassion only her daughter and cast out the demon. Mark was this recurring theme Faith and miracles, when a person’s faith in Christ is shown a miracle is preformed.

Read Matthews account of this same event in Matthew 15:21-28 you get a few more details from his account. Today again ask yourself Do I Have this Kind of Faith. Would Jesus work a miracle in my family because of my faith in Him?

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Boy there is a lot of meat in this passage of scripture, I hope you really read it well is that God can speak to your heart today. The picture is clear Jesus sent the disciples away so he could be alone to pray. First lesson, prayer in private is important. We all need to have a private place and time to pray and nothing else. Jesus was God in the flesh and He needed it, so how much more do we need it? The disciples were having a tough time fighting the wind and current so they were not getting to the port very fast. As a matter of fact they were moving in inches and yards. Jesus saw them even thought it was night and about three in the morning He was walking on the water toward them. They saw Him and thought Him to be a ghost. So He walked over and got in the boat and the sea became clam. They were amazed; Jesus had just feed over five thousand with the five loaves and two fish. But they were not getting it at all. Their hearts were hard, not that they rejected Jesus, but that they were not that it in, who Jesus really was. They had the truth but they pushed it away. The truth would change you if you let it and for some reason they did not see the need to be changed by the truth. Maybe they were not willing to totally trust Him, there was no way to fake the feeding of the five thousand, there was no way to fake His control over the wind and the sea, there was no way to fake walking on the water. He healed the lame, blind and cast out demons but they just could not trust Him yet.

Let me try to sum this up this way. I know the truth that the law says you will drive at a set speed on the highways. That is truth I know it to be truth, but I want to drive faster than what the law says I can so I speed. I like to speed; I do not say there is no speed limit, I choose to not let it change my love for speed. So that when the police write me a ticket, take my driver license or I kill myself or others with my speed I knew the truth it did not change me.

Pray and ask God to soften your heart to the truth and that you will stop pushing God away. Let the truth change you!

Here we have the story of John the Baptist’s killing by Herod. Herod was the son of Herod the great who had all the Jewish baby boys killed trying to kill Jesus. He was wicked and his son was just as wicked. He had married his brother’s wife who name was Herodias and she was even wicked than Herod. Not only was she Herod’s sister-in-law but she was also his niece. So there is wrong on all kind of levels going on here. John the Baptist had called Herod out on his sin and Herodias wanted John killed but Herod put him in jail. On Herod’s birthday he through a big drunken party for himself and his buddies. Herodias got her daughter to go in and do a dirty dance for them and Herod said oh baby you are looking good to me. I will give you anything you ask for up to half of my kingdom. So she ask mom “what should I ask for”, mom said the Head on John the Baptist. So that is what she asks for and that put Herod in a bad place. I do not want to kill John but all my buddies heard me tell her that I would give her whatever she wanted. Kill John and save face with my friends or do what is right and spare his life. Oh well I guess John will die I can’t look bad to my drunken friends. So John was beheaded and Herodias was finally happy because John was dead.

The question for you today is simple: are you a John or a Herod?

John did what was right even to the point of going to jail and having his head cut off. Herod did evil all the time because he was worried about what his friends would think. Matthew 5:11-12 reads Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

Today write God a letter and be honest with Him, tell Him if you and a John and why. Or tell Him if you are a Herod and why. Then ask Him for help becoming a John.

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Don’t be scared of the Word of God, that is very much for today. Jesus is telling the disciples that it is time to spread out and go village to village. Go two by two which is a rule to live by today. In the world which we live today it makes a lot of sense to not do God’s work alone. We need to have a witnessing partner to pray for us, for safety, for help, and to watch our back. Don’t worry about taking a lot of tools or stuff with you. We are to depend on God to help us and to guide us not stuff. Just go and plan on God providing for your needs. Then in verse eleven we are told to be respectful and gracious as we go. When someone is meeting your needs don’t be looking for something better, or shopping for a better offer. This next point is very important for you, people are responsible for their choice to receive the message, we are to carry the message of our faith in Christ and what He has done for us. They must decide to follow Christ or not, we give the message and then it is out of our hands. We are to go! That is what God wants us to do. Check out what Paul says in 1 Cor. 2 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

That is what we need to do and the way we need to do it. Today pray for God to give you a gospel partner and that God will lead you to that person who you need to share the gospel with.

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Jesus is in a hard place here, He is back at His roots so to say. The place where young Jesus had grew up and He was remembered. He goes to church and teaches from Isaiah 61 and then tells the people He is the fulfillment of that passage. The people say who does this guy think; He is to teach and say these things. We knew Him when He was a little boy running around playing with the other kids. I remember when I, as a man started to witness to my lost father, who was in his sixty’s at the time. Over the years he had heard a lot of people who he thought knew the Bible say things about the Bible and God that just was not true. Some of them thought that they were helping him but they really had confused him about a lot of things. Sometimes we would get pretty heated as I would try to show him the truth and he would not want to believe me. One day as we talked he said why are you right an everyone I’ve ever known all my life is wrong? I said, I can show you what I’m saying in the Bible. Dad here it is in the Bible, now show me in the Bible were your believe is. He saw me as his little boy and it was hard for him to understand that I may have more understanding of spiritual things than him and other adults who he had known. That helped that day to understand where he was, and helped him to see the truth. You may be growing in your relationship with God faster or more than family and friends. That is a hard place to be, the truth is still the truth, and in Jesus case they tried to push Him over a cliff. Your family and friends know you and your short comings and may try to take you down to their level. Jesus pushed through the crowd, and so must we. We must continue to grow in Christ and not allow others to push us over the spiritual cliff and down to their level.

Family and friends know the real person we are or who we may have been. They are the hardest people we come into contact with to witness to or to give spiritual help. I know it is hard but today reach out and witness to lost family and friends.

What a great passage of scripture, two miracles in just a short passage of time. Jesus comes back across the lake and the people are waiting on Him at Capernaum. Jairus comes to Jesus and tells Him that his daughter is at death’s door and would He come a heal her. Not can you, but will you heal her, because of his faith Jesus say sure I will and they started to his house. But on the way the lady who had an issue of blood for twelve years came up behind Him and touched His clothes. She was healed at that second, and Jesus knowing that power had left Him, ask who touched me? Now He was in a big crowd which was pushing and shoving trying to get to Him. But the woman came forward and told Jesus her story and that she had faith that if she could just touch His clothes she would be healed and because of her faith she was. But then some men came to Jairus and told him his daughter was dead not to bother Jesus anymore. Talk about a faith killer, wow, she is dead, no healing now just bury her. Jesus said to him “Be not afraid, only believe.” Then at the house the people laughed at Jesus for saying the girl is not dead. But Jesus raised her from the dead. She was up walking around and ready to eat. That was no trick; nothing fake about it Jesus raised her because of her father’s faith.

First the woman, her faith was so strong that she did not think that Jesus would not heal her. If she touched His clothing she would be healed, which was something that no one else could do.

Second was Jarius who believed that Jesus could and would heal his daughter. Jesus not only healed her but He raised her from the dead. Healed completely ready to get on with her life.

Where is your faith today? Do you really believe God hears and answers your prayer? God hears and answers the prayers of the people with faith in Him to do so.

Read Genesis 6-7-8 the life of Noah. If you want to see faith at work, an old man building a boat, in a point in time that had not seen rain, just because God said so.

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Wow! Jesus goes over to the place called Gadarenes and as soon as He lands on the shore, here come a demon possessed man naked, dirty, probably bleeding from the self inflicted wounds of cutting himself, out of his mind crazy. I would have jumped back in the boat and said get me out of here quickly. But Jesus had compassion on this poor man. Think about his story, he was naked, cutting himself crying out for help, having to live in the grave yard alone; people were always trying to chain him up like a mad dog. No friends to turn to, no one to give him hope, no joy only pain and suffering. Then comes Jesus to him and Jesus is moved to help him. Notice that Jesus ask the demon his name and he replied legion. That is somewhere between three and six thousand depending on who you ask. The point is that there were a very large number of demons in the man. Jesus speaks and they leave the man and go into about two thousand pigs, which run down the hill into the sea and drown themselves. The pig farmers tell the towns people who come out to see just what the heck are going on. And they find this poor man who was possessed clothed and in his right mind. You would think they would have bowed down and praise Jesus, but they ask Him to leave. So He did, but not before He instructed the man to stay behind and tell what the Lord had done for him. We could spend much more time here but I want you to focus on the man and the instruction Jesus gave to him. Tell his family and friends what the Lord had done. Read Judges chapters 6 and 7, Gideon was a man who thought he could do nothing for God are God’s people. God does not need great numbers or great people to do His work. He just needs you to do want He ask of you. If we are faithful in doing as God ask us to do that is all God requires of us. The success is His, not ours.

Jesus has left you here were you are today to tell others about Him. Your family, friends, and the people across the road who do not go to church you can and should tell them about Jesus. Tell them how much you love Jesus and how much Jesus loves you.

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The Kingdom of God is not just in heaven, or the church but it is all so right now. As believers in Christ we are a part of the Kingdom of God right now. There are some things which that place as we grow in our relationship with Christ. The growth is a natural thing if God is in control of our life. We may not even know that it is happening until something happens and we react in a new way without even thinking about it. A way that glorifies God and shows that we are who we say we are “a child of God.” If we allow God to control our life we will experience a natural growth into His likeness. Gal 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

Gal 5:20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

Gal 5:21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

Gal 5:23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. Notice verses 22 & 23 these are the fruits that should be growing in the lives of every Christian. If not them the Christian is planting the wrong seeds. Example MTV= wrong seeds, you can try to justify it all day long but there is nothing on MTV that will help you plant the seeds of the fruit of the spirit. It will however plant the seeds of the fruit seen in verses 19-21. Sorry, but truth is truth and the truth will set you free from the bondage of sin. Everything in our lives effects us for Christ or against Christ.

Today ask yourself what kind of seed am I planting in my life?

If you are really brave ask someone you trust to be painfully honest with you, what kind of seeds are bearing fruit in your life?

Do some weeding out of the bad seeds and replace with the good seed of God’s Word.

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This passage is continuing from yesterdays so you may need to look over yesterdays rambling to refresh your memory. Now you have looked over yesterday’s passage and you have read today’s passage do you understand what is going on here. Jesus is giving the answer to the question by the disciplines in verses 10-12 they asked are you trying to confuse people with these parables. Remember a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning, when you hear a parable you must open your heart, your mind, and your ears is you can hear and receive the message. The people who truly are listening and desire to learn with get it, to ones whose mind is wondering and who’s half listening will not get it. Sometimes I watch people when the Bible is being taught and they are doing everything but listen. Some sleep, some daydream, some write notes about others things, the points they do not listen then they wonder why others were blessed by the teaching or preaching and they didn’t get it. If you want to gain wisdom and knowledge from the Bible you must open up and make an effort. Read Matthew 5 today and ask God what you want to teach me today. Practice reading, studying, and listening to God’s Word with an open heart, mind and ears so you can grow in your wisdom of spiritual living. Pray and ask God to help you.

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What is a parable? It is a way to show a complex idea in a simple way to someone. Sometimes the people get it sometimes they don’t. The disciplines didn’t get it this time so Jesus had to explain further for them. Jesus said that people are like different types of soil. The first type person is hard packed tight and not letting anything it. God’s Word just hits them with no impact at all. The Word is give to them and they are so hard that it can’t take root at all and Satan comes ago and wipes it away. Then the second type person is the stony or rocking soil. The Word of God tries to take root in their lives but we are so swallow that they don’t pray, study their Bible, Fellowship with other Christians, or serve God so they dry up and die. The third type person is the thorns The Word take root and starts to grow but they have so much worldly junk in their lives that it chokes the life out of the spiritual growth. It dies with some impact of them but not enough to change their life style. Then there is the person who is the good soil. The Word takes root and changes their life so that we grow healthy and produce fruit. Thirdly, sixty, and even a hundred fold they produce fruit. Which type soil are you? Maybe you need to look at getting the thorns or rocks out of your life. Maybe you are hard and you need to be softening up by a loving plowing of your heart. Read Mathew 13:1-23 it is the same parable with some more detail which may help you to see what you are working with. Pray and ask God to help you to be productive.