Two Babies, Two Ministries

Day 3

Mark 1

We find the two babies born back in Luke 1, now grown men, stepping into their ministries. Having been being prepared for this all their lives, now those around them start to see more of the prophesies of old being fulfilled  However, not every one accepted them as being from God.  And so both were challenged as to their authenticity.

We learn from our notes in the Quest that Mark omits many things in his account of Jesus life that Matthew and Luke included in theirs.  That doesn't make Luke's account was any less important, in fact, it shows that he was just as important in writing his account as the other three who wrote the gospels. 

Sometimes we might wonder why Jesus would be led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted because He is the Son of God and how could he even be tempted because of that.  But that is when we must remember that Jesus was not only the Son of God, he was also the son of man and could be tempted in every way we could.  If there is one thing of great importance we can learn from Jesus is that He was submitted to the will of God and led by His Spirit at all times.  Jesus was conceived by the Spirit, so He had the Spirit of God in Him from birth, but He was baptized in the Spirit after His baptism in water to show us that we too needed not only be baptized in water, but also need the baptism of the Holy Spirit for power to be witnesses in this world. That it is why it is so important for us to be led by the Spirit and not by our flesh. Just like Jesus, if we find ourselves being tempted, He is faithful to keep us as well, as long as we stay committed to His Word.  Jesus won His time of temptation by using the Word of God as His weapon.  So not only is it important to be led by the Spirit, we must know the Word of God, having our loins girded with the Truth.

I thought the Quest's notation was very good, "The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the desert to be tempted by Satan to show that temptation doesn't need to end in failure."

After Jesus is baptized in water and by the Holy Spirit, He then begins His earthly ministry.  Many were amazed that He had authority over the evil spirits and could heal the sick  Sometimes sickness is caused by evil spirits presence in a person, but not all the time.  It really takes the gift of discerning of spirits to know that. Jesus was operating in that gift of the Spirit when He healed those bound by an evil spirit.

We see Jesus choosing some of his disciples in this passage  We notice right away that when Jesus bid them come, they dropped everything to follow Him. 

Maybe that is the big lesson of the day, are we willing to leave everything we are doing, when Jesus bids us come.  I pray the Lord give us all grace to do that.