Saturday, March 9, 2019

MARCH 9, 2019

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” 
― Martin Luther King Jr.

DEUTERONOMY 8-10

1Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. 2Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord4Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. 5Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.(8:1-5)


MARK 12:28-44

28One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.e 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’f 31The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’g There is no commandment greater than these.”
32“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
34When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

JOURNAL 

I love this verse in Deuteronomy! "That as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you." God is for us, he desires that we become our best, but in order to do so we must go through struggles, times of heartache and times when we wonder what's the point of it all. God does this to bring us to him, to teach us to trust him and to realize that we are not all powerful, that this world is not just about us and our desires. To then juxtapose this with Jesus words on the greatest commandment...the message could not be more clear. 

God desires that we surrender to him and love each other. In doing so we become the best version of ourselves. In becoming that best version, we glorify him and become a light in a world of darkness. That's our purpose and when we surrender to this purpose we find immeasurable joy. 

41Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.
43Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.44They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”
MARK 12:41-44

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