When Jesus gets to the other side of the sea He is met by a man who is suffering torment. He was possessed by multiple spirits and lived among the tombs. No one had the strength to bind him, not even with chains because he would just break them apart. All day and all night he wandered among the tombs crying out and cutting himself. His life was hopeless.

When he saw Jesus he ran and fell down to worship him. He is still under the control of the demons as we see by the conversation they had. The demons have recognised Jesus and know they are powerless against Him. They submit in the hope that they can plead their request not to be sent out of the company. During Jesus’ interaction with the man He asks the demon’s name which is where he reveals by the name Legion that they are many (a Roman legion was an army division of six thousand troops).

The man’s life was full of torment and hopelessness but at the mere sight of Jesus, the demons cowered in submission and worship. No matter how hopeless your life may seem, Jesus can and will redeem your situation if you will submit to Him and allow Him to work in your situation.

The final parable Mark mentions is the parable of the mustard seed. Jesus compares the kingdom of God to the small-seeded plant that grows into a large garden plant. Because of all the opposition faced, the kingdom would start out small but would grow large in time as it spreads to a worldwide reach. The birds of the air are likely evil influences that remain ever-present as the kingdom expands. The birds are the ones that eat the seed that doesn’t get to take root (Mark 4:4) and throughout the New Testament, we are warned that false teachers will arise within the church. We must be careful to ensure we are grounded in truth because the church will not be pure until Jesus returns and separates the wheat from the tares (Mat 13:24-30).

When Jesus had finished teaching that day He headed across the sea with the disciples. A windstorm came up and got so large and severe that the boats were filling with water. Meanwhile, Jesus slept on a cushion in the stern of the boat. The disciples were afraid because they thought they were going to die. Jesus was able to sleep because He knew that the Father was in control of when He was going to die. When Jesus woke up, He rebuked the wind and told the sea to be calm—and it was immediately calm. He then asked the disciples why they were afraid and didn’t have faith. They were filled with greater fear because, while they knew that Jesus was the Messiah, they hadn’t yet come to recognise that He was God in the flesh.
Jesus had taught the crowds through parables and the disciples with clear explanations. Now He was teaching them through life experience. We need to apply what we read in God’s word into our everyday life to see that God is real and active in our lives. When we apply God’s truth to how we live our faith will grow. The more you trust God, the more you will see how trustworthy He is. What do you need to take God at his word for today?

Jesus explains the parable of the sower. The sower sows the word and the word meets four different kinds of recipients. The first is the seed falling on the path where the Satan snatches the word and the person doesn’t receive it—they don’t believe at all. The rest of the seeds falls on different degrees of receptive soil where it is able to take root. These three are all believers. The first is the rocky ground where the person receives the word and believes but there is no depth or maturity so at the first sign of trial or persecution they fall away. The second is the thorny ground where the person believes but again there is no growth or maturity. These people become more concerned with the cares of the world, the lure of riches and the desire for other things and are prevented from bearing any fruit. The final person is the one who receives God’s word, believes, and then grows to maturity in faith bearing fruit. Which soil are you?

It seems obvious that a lamp is lit to give light and it would make no sense to put it under a basket or a bed where its light is useless. God’s word is meant to shine a light on the condition of our hearts and we should be changed by it. The more we accept the truth of God’s word and allow it to change us, the more fruitful we will be. The more fruitful we are, the more useful we are to God and the more He will entrust us with. The more He entrusts us with and we continue to be faithful with, the more He will reward us one day in Heaven. If we are not faithful in obeying God’s word, then God will take away in the form of discipline and loss of rewards in eternity. How receptive are you to God’s word? Is it a light you place high to continually shine on your life or are you hiding it so it has limited affect on you?

Just as a farmer is not able to do much about the growth of the seed he sows but he must wait and let it grow. The same is true about the sharing of God’s word. God’s word has power in itself and God will do the work of growth in people’s lives. If we have opportunity, we must sow God’s word through sharing and preaching and then trust God to bring about the fruit.

We have personal responsibility to listen to and respond to God’s word in our own lives. We are also called to share God’s word with others but then we can safely leave the outcome of that in God’s hands.

Jesus began teaching again and a large crowd gathered. The crowd was so large that He needed to get into a boat to teach (probably to remain safe from the bustling crowd who all wanted to touch Him). At this point in His ministry, Jesus began to teach in parables. Parables were stories told that contained deeper spiritual truths but on the surface they were mysterious and difficult to understand.

Jesus’ first parable was of a farmer who sowed seed. The same seed landed on four different surfaces: rocky ground, shallow soil, soil with dormant weeds, and good soil. The birds ate the seed on the rocky ground while all the other seed took root and began to grow. The plants in the shallow soil withered from lack of root. The seed among the weeds was choked as it tried to grow so it yielded no crop. The plants in the good soil grew well and had a strong yield far greater than a farmer would consider a good crop (tenfold was considered a fine crop).

Jesus explained that He began to teach in parables because of the state of people’s hearts. To the disciples (probably more than the twelve) who had chosen to believe, God had helped them see that Jesus was ushering in a new kingdom plan. Jesus was bringing in a new way of doing things that the disciples believed in while the religious leaders only saw as a threat to their way of life. The parables provided a way for those who really sought the truth to dig for it and ponder it while those who didn’t want to believe, the truth remained hidden from them.

What is your approach to God’s word? Do you recognise it as the source of all truth which you read eagerly anticipating that truth to be revealed? One of the biggest stumbling blocks to the effectiveness of the truth of God’s word is our unwillingness to see our way of life changed. God’s word will remain ineffective if you’re not willing to let it change you.

The scribes came down from Jerusalem and accused Jesus of being possessed by Satan. They attributed His ability to cast out demons to a partnership with Satan. Jesus showed them the flaw of their argument by using parables. First, a house divided cannot stand. If Satan is casting out his own demons then where is his power? He is defeating himself. The next point Jesus makes is the opposite. Satan does have power and has bound many with demon possession. The only way to rob Satan of his power is for One more powerful to come and tie him up and take away what he has. Jesus was showing, by freeing people from their demon possession, that He was that stronger one who was able to successfully plunder Satan of his goods.
The Jesus gave a stern warning that anyone who blasphemes the Holy Spirit commits an unforgivable sin. This sin seems to be completely localised to the Jewish leaders who were in effect calling the Holy Spirit Satan. We need not be concerned that we might inadvertently commit this unpardonable sin. The only sin that cannot be forgiven is the sin of rejecting Jesus up to one’s death, because after death there is no further opportunity to receive His saving grace. If you have not received Jesus’ free gift of salvation, then today is the day!

Mark returns to the story of Jesus’ family coming to rescue Him from the crowds. Jesus uses that opportunity to point out that everyone has an opportunity to have a family relationship with Him. Whoever does the will of God (John 6:29) is a member of Jesus’ family.

At this point in His ministry, Jesus selected twelve men from the many people (Mark 2:15) who followed him. Those twelve would become known as the apostles. These twelve were to stay close to Him and learn from Him so He could send them out to preach and be given specific authority to cast out demons. Jesus kept the twelve close so they could learn deeply from Him every day. We too have the opportunity of this kind of learning if we spend much time in God’s word and in prayer by the Holy Spirit.

Again Mark points out that Jesus is overwhelmed by crowds that even prevented him from eating. His family tried to get him away because they thought he was mad for caring more for the crowds than his own needs. When people look at your life, do they think you are mad because your focus is more on doing what God wants than it is on what the world might consider best for yourself? Jesus had a mission from God the Father and He used every opportunity to live that mission (He also never did more than the Father called Him to do).

Another time Jesus went to the synagogue. This time there was a man with a withered hand and the leaders of the Jews had gathered to see if Jesus would heal him on the Sabbath so that they could accuse him. Jesus stands the man up in front of the crowed and asks them whether it is right to do good or ham, save a life or kill on the Sabbath. They remain silent, they were not prepared to discuss the issue. They had already made up their minds. Jesus looks at them with grief because their hearts are so hard. Then Jesus said to the man, “stretch out your hand,” and it was immediately healed. Jesus didn’t do anything physical that might be construed as work. But the Pharisees immediately went and plotted how to kill Jesus (their hard hearts drove them to “kill” and “do harm” on the Sabbath).
Is your heart so hard set on something that it is completely closed off to hearing truth? We should hold our own ideas lightly with the expectation that they can always be corrected in light of the Bible’s teaching.

From there, Jesus was again overwhelmed by crowds who were drawn to his healing ministry. He asked the disciples to have a boat ready so he had a way of escape from the crushing crowds who all desired to touch him and be healed.

As Jesus continued His teaching ministry, He came across Levi (Matthew), who was a tax collector, and invited him to follow Him. Levi invited Jesus to his house along with his many friends. The Pharisees were appalled that Jesus would eat with tax collectors and sinners. The Pharisees saw anyone who didn’t live up to their religious standards as sinners compared to their self-righteousness. Jesus’ mission was to save sinners, those who humbly recognised their need for His grace and forgiveness. Jesus can’t save those who see no need to repent. What does your interaction with people look like? Are you huddled with “holy” people like yourself or do you befriend the sinner and the outcast? We need to be eating with sinners if we’re to get an opportunity to introduce them to Jesus.

Fasting was only required under the law on the Day of Atonement (Lev 16:29) as an act of repentance. The Pharisees had added voluntary fasts twice a week as an act of piety. They might be fasting on one of those days while Jesus is feasting at Matthew’s house. Fasting was generally considered an act of sorrow which Jesus said was inappropriate at such a joyous time as Jesus being with them. One day He would be (violently) taken away from them and crucified on the cross. At that time it would be appropriate to express sorrow. Jesus went on to explain—using the analogy of patching old clothing with new cloth and pouring new, unfermented, wine into old, stretched wineskins—that trying to combine the new teachings of the gospel with the old religion of Judaism was futile. Salvation through Jesus is completely free compared to the onerous requirements of the law which cannot save.

Mark tells us of another time where the Pharisees question Jesus’ refusal to follow their ultra religious requirements. The Law of Moses forbade working on the Sabbath. In an effort to ensure that the law was obeyed, the Pharisees had redefined work so far that even picking a grain of wheat to snack on was considered harvesting, or work. These self-made rules that were intended to make sure the law was not broken had become as significant as the law itself in their eyes. God had always intended the Sabbath to be a day of rest that allowed His people a reprieve from the good work He had prepared for them (Gen 2:15). The Sabbath was a gift of rest and an opportunity to worship freely. We were not created to work non-stop. We need rest. More importantly, we need a day to refocus on God, worship Him and put our lives back into perspective. God gave us this gift in the Sabbath, which we now use on Sunday (the day Jesus rose again). Do you use a day like Sunday to rest and worship or does it look just like every other day, full of busyness and work?

Back in Capernaum, Jesus is at home and there are many gathered listening to Him preach so much so that there was no more room in the house, not even at the door. Four men bring their paralytic friend to Jesus and because they can’t get to Him through the door, they go up and lower him to Jesus through the roof. Jesus sees their faith and says to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Think about their potential disappointment at this. They are so desperate to get this man healing that they go through the roof of the house and all Jesus says is, “your sins are forgiven.” I don’t think they lowered their friend through the roof to have his sins forgiven. But Jesus clearly knows his deepest need is for a healed soul.

This man serves as an object lesson for the scribes who question Jesus’ authority. Who can forgive someone’s sins except God alone? They think Jesus is blaspheming but they miss the point—He is God. The challenge with telling someone their sins are forgiven is that there is no way to know if it’s just words or whether their sins are in fact forgiven. That’s why Jesus is healing people. His words have real power because whether He says “your sins are forgiven” or “rise up and walk” it happens. Jesus heals the man of his outward condition to prove that He has the authority and power to heal him of his inward condition.

What is your greatest concern for those around you? Is it for their physical needs or their spiritual need? When you pray, are you most concerned about your spiritual need to be transformed to be more like Christ?

While Jesus is off praying to ensure that He remained focussed on His mission from the Father, the disciples come searching for Him because the crowds are looking for Him. They seem to have been caught up in exactly the problem Jesus is trying to avoid. They see the opportunity of fame the crowds present, but Jesus says they need to leave and go to other towns so that His message can be preached. Jesus and the disciples leave Capernaum and move through Galilee where Jesus preached in the synagogues and cast out demons to validate His message.

At some point, a leper came to Jesus and asked for healing. As a leper, he would have suffered at every level, physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. He would have been a total outcast from society. He shows great courage coming up to Jesus. He also shows great faith because he recognises that Jesus could heal him even though no Jew had been healed of leprosy since Moses’ day. Jesus had compassion on him and cleansed him.
Jesus told him not to tell anyone what had happened and sent him to the priests to present himself and the appropriate offering the law of Moses dictated. This would be a validation of his cleansing and would serve as proof that Jesus had done the cleansing. That proof would be held against the priests in the future when they refused to believe Jesus is who He said He was. The law had the provision to declare someone clean from leprosy but it had no power to make someone clean.
The leper couldn’t restrain himself. He told everyone he could about what had happened to him so much so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town.

The leper was so excited about what had happened to him that he couldn’t stop himself from telling everyone, despite being in direct disobedience to Jesus. We have been told that we should tell everyone we know about what Jesus has done for us and most of us battle to tell even one person. Why?