Day 163: Emotional Highs

Mark 9:2-50; 2 Samuel 22; Hosea 2:2-23

Peter, James and John have an incredibly powerful experience. They see Jesus revealed, they hear the voice of God, and they worship The Lord with reverent fear. However, they think that this kind of thing will last. They eventually come down the mountain and get back to regular life. So many people and churches depend on those emotional highs to get people to "accept Jesus," or fall on their knees, or come to the altar or lift their hands. There is nothing wrong with any of that scripturally, but if the only time you feel close to Jesus is during one of the moments, then you are going to struggle in your faith. Peter, James, and John had to come down the mountain, return to real life, but did Jesus expect less fervent devotion since they weren't on a spiritual high? Of course not! As they coming down the mountain, Jesus reprimands the disciples for not having enough faith to heal a boy, and the father of the boy questions if Jesus could actually heal him. They were trying to live out their faith but were struggling. It's going to be hard no matter what, but we have to learn to trust the Lord on a daily basis. We can go to the altar one hundred times, weeping all the way, but unless we follow Jesus in our day to day lives, those emotional highs experienced in services designed to create them, are not helpful or beneficial.

At the end of this story, Jesus says that only prayer can force out that kind of demon. To me, this is Jesus saying that prayer is a powerful tool for healing and for life.

A few other powerful thoughts that come from this chapter in Mark: if you want a place of honor in heaven, serve, serve serve. We need to work together as the various denominations of Christianity, not against one another; there are bigger battles to fight than with other Christians.  And finally, we need to take sin seriously. If there is sin in our lives, we need to completely destroy it, not just live in denial or be flippant about it. Man, if followers of Christ would really, actually, truly follow the teachings of Jesus, the culture of Christianity would be so different!

In this song that David sings in 2 Samuel, he cries out with praise about the victory that God had given him. I've noticed that a lot of Christians don't live victoriously, but actually live like victims. Who is our God? He's a fortress, a shield, a rock! He can make the heavens shake and the mountains crumble! Why are people acting so victimized? The thing that also strikes me about this passage is that for the whole first half of the song, David talks about God being a great defender, not a weapon. God is our defense, our protector first. We are not to use him or his word as a weapon to hurt others. Later David goes on to say that God helped him defeat his enemies and use is bow, but his first comments focus on God as defense, not offense. If believers would view the word of God that way, I think Christians would be viewed as a lot less judgmental and hypocritical.

Then in his song, David is thankful that God rescued him, but it didn't happen as soon as there was a problem on the horizon. David was knocking at death's door, it was the end of the line for him before God rescued him. We can't assume that God is going to keep us from troubles. David was staring death in the face before God showed his.

I know this is long. Almost done...

Why do people who chase everything besides God end up in ruins? Why does a church, who is pursuing the wrong things often crumble? It is because God doesn't want us to sin. In this passage in Hosea he says of this woman who represents his people, that he will build a fence of thorns to block the path. He doesn't want us to destroy ourselves and I think that is one reason why life gets so messy when people are living in sin. That's what a life outside of God is. But God wants to help the unfaithful. How does he do that? He will take them into the "desert." I think what this means for us today is that he will take us into a place that is desolate and hopeless and foreign where we have nothing left in life that matters so we turn back to him. Not pretty, but it often works. God wants to give us good things, but when we run away, he finds ways to direct us back again.