In the beginning of the gospel of Jesus… the one according to Mark… we see the beginning of the journey… the path of discipleship laid out…
Repentance… baptism… temptation… fellowship… revelation…
By the end of the first chapter… we discover… it’s all spiritual…
See and hear with me…
Read Mark 1:35-45…
After an evening of healing… Jesus rises early… while it’s still dark… to spend time with His Father… in prayer…
Others waking later… look for Him… wonder where He’s gone… there are still so many to heal…
When Simon finds Him… tells Him He’s wanted… He says… It’s time to move on… there’s preaching to do… That’s why I came…
We might be disappointed Jesus came to preach… not heal…
We have physical aches… pains… needs and discomforts…
But He came to preach…?!
It doesn’t sound like good news to the flesh… until we begin to understand what He’s doing…
The spiritual needs of people are far more important… than the physical…
We’re all like grass… remember…?
We wither… die… here for but a passing moment…
However… our spirits are eternal… they last forever… and the consequences of spiritual dis-ease lasts longer than the aches of the flesh…
That’s why He wakes early… seeks the Father… feeds His spirit before His belly…
That’s why He came to preach to spirits… to souls… to show us the spiritual trumps the physical…
The spiritual realm is the reality… and the physical manifests that reality in both dis-ease and healing…
The woes of the world are due to the corruption of the spirit… the sickness of sin…
Jesus is moved to pity by the leper asking for healing… and heal He does… but He tells the man to see to his spiritual needs…
And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.”
Mark 1:43-44 ESV
Whatever physical healing we experience in this life is only temporary…
But the soul… it lasts forever… it’s suffering far more grievous…
This is why He came to preach… it’s all spiritual…
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Romans 10:13-17 ESV
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