Pushing Forward

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MARK

PUSHING FORWARD

Mark 3:7-12

7 Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed. 8 When they heard all he was doing, many people came to him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon. 9 Because of the crowd he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him, to keep the people from crowding him. 10 For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him. 11 Whenever the evil spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, "You are the Son of God." 12 But he gave them strict orders not to tell who he was.

NIV

We are still not clear as to who these evil spirits are who know who Jesus is. From other scripture we found the Angels who left heaven have been kept chained up in darkness until the judgment day, and the Greek does not help in that the word for spirit can be applied to the disposition of the human heart as well as to some supernatural being of some sort either angelic or demonic, but the lesson for us today in not in these evil spirits but rather in the crowd pushing forward to touch him. Sometimes it is a wonder why we do not see crowds pushing forward today in order to touch Jesus. Sure he is not in the flesh, and sure many people are not being healed, and sure we don’t see a whole lot in any evil spirits being cast out, but Jesus is just as real today as he was in the flesh. True we need a little more, well a lot more faith then those people did, but nevertheless all those types of experiences are available today. People can be healed; people can be delivered from evil spirits if only they would push forward to touch Jesus. But we are way too cool for that kind of behavior; we are far too sophisticated to push our way forward toward Jesus. Maybe we are afraid we won’t actually be healed. Maybe we really do not believe Jesus heals today. We do have testimonies of his healing power, but maybe we try to explain it in some medical sense, like Jesus uses the doctors. We do have actual physical miraculous healings yet we hang back and do not push forward to touch Jesus. Is it time for a revival? Do we need some kind of supernatural healing service for us to start our push forward? Heck we don’t even have the crowds yet, there is no need to push because there is plenty of room near Jesus. Maybe the reason there are no crowds is not enough people have heard all that he is doing. Maybe it is time for revival after all, a revival of our hearts and our faith so Jesus can start doing all that healing and casting out of evil spirits and then crowds will hear and come and then people will have to start pushing forward in order to touch Jesus. Maybe it is time for a revival. Maybe we need to start pushing forward.