Thoughts on Mark 8

Today's reading: Leviticus 27; Mark 8

I really love and deeply appreciate how ordinary Jesus' disciples were.

If you have ever tried to seriously follow the Lord, you know how difficult and disheartening it can be. Now don't get me wrong here, there is incredible joy and great encouragement to be found in a life lived for the purposes and plans of God, but if you really try to follow Him, you will quickly realize just how far short you fall.

Every time that sin that you thought was dealt with rears its head, every time God places a step of faith before you that you choose not to take, every time you sit down to pray and get distracted by something entirely unimportant, every time you fail to make the time to read the Bible or go to church, every time you fail in a thousand other ways, it can just feel defeating. Each of these failures is a chance to fall back on the limitless grace of God, and no failure will ever impact our standing before the Lord in Christ, but when we genuinely love Him and want to live for Him, those failures can be deeply, deeply discouraging.

In those times when it is tempting to think, "Why am I even trying? How could God even use someone as messed up and not together spiritually as I am?" it is such an incredible blessing that Jesus picked such absolutely ordinary men to be his disciples.

Think about the disciples here in Mark 8. They weren't just present for the feeding of the 5000, they were participants in facilitating that miracle. Jesus blessed the five loaves and two fish and then gave them to them to pass out, and after everyone was done, they picked up 12 large baskets full of the leftovers. Doesn't seem like the kind of thing you would easily forget, does it? And yet, when Jesus says He wants to feed the 4000 people gathered to Him there, their response is, "How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?" They have literally seen Jesus do this exact same miracle before, but when they are in a position to exercise a bit of faith, it's like the feeding of the 5000 never even happened.

Then, if that wasn't bad enough, when they get in the boat and are crossing the sea and Jesus warns them about the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod (referring to their teaching) the disciples begin discussing their shortage of bread because they only have one loaf with them in the boat. They previously saw Jesus feed 5000 men (plus women and children) with 5 loaves and a couple fish, and now they saw Him feed 4000 with 7 loaves, and they are really concerned that they only have one loaf among the maybe couple dozen people with them there on the boat?

Then, right when you think these guys are never going to get it, Peter comes out with the great statement of faith in response to Jesus asking who they think He is, and he declares Jesus to be the Christ. And you think, "Okay, maybe they are getting it!" until you read the next verse and Peter rebukes Jesus for telling them what was going to happen to Him, and Jesus tells Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man."

Sound familiar?

Jesus did not pick His disciples because they were men of great faith, wisdom, knowledge, or understanding. Jesus' disciples were just ordinary people like you and me, fickle, sometimes faithful, but many other times faithless. They loved Jesus and wanted to follow Him, but when the rubber met the road and Jesus was being arrested in the garden, every one of them fled and left Him alone. And lest you think that was all and only because they didn't yet have the indwelling Holy Spirit, let's not forget what Paul tells us in Galatians 2 about having to publicly rebuke Peter for how He was leading the Jewish Christians at Antioch into hypocrisy.

This is why I say that I love and appreciate how ordinary Jesus' disciples were. Because in those times when it is tempting to think, "Why am I even trying? How could God even use someone as messed up and not together spiritually as I am?" I can look to them and know that He already did. God did use someone as messed up and not together spiritually as I am, in fact, He used 12 of them, and those 12 ordinary men, because they were willing to place their fickle and often faithless hearts in God's hands, and were willing to continue to pursue Him and His purposes, no matter how many times they may have personally failed, completely changed the world.

The question is not whether you are "too sinful," "too fickle," or fail "too often." God knows how sinful, fickle, and failure ridden you are, and it is honestly much more than you realize... And yet, knowing you fully, warts and all, He also loves you fully. In Christ, you are His child, He delights in you, and He has good works prepared for you to walk in. It's not a question of how many times we may fail as we try to follow Him, it is a question of how many times we, in humility, will allow the grace of Christ to be enough, and continue to place our fickle hearts in His hands, running toward Him and His purposes above all else.

We have such an incredible, good, loving, patient, and kind God, and I am so grateful that He gives people as spiritually messy as me, Jesus' disciples, and literally every other Christian who has ever lived, the opportunity to be used by Him in truly meaningful, eternity-shaking ways.