April 7 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Mark 16:1–7

Devotional

In order to get to Galilee, the disciples need to follow Jesus. But this following will be different than in the past. At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, the disciples left all they had and followed Him. They did not, of course, fully understand His calling. Sometimes they acted out of presumption. They went ahead of Him when they expected an earthly kingdom and even argued who would hold the important positions in the kingdom. They wanted to stop Jesus when He spoke of His suffering and dying. They refused to accept that this was God’s plan. And when they finally realized that His way would be the way of humiliation, they again went ahead of Him, for they wanted to die for Him.

All their presumption proved to be futile. They wanted to go ahead of Him, but they could not even follow Him. They were offended and bitterly disappointed when He so easily surrendered Himself to be bound by His enemies. They had expected His exaltation instead of His humiliation. And in the end, instead of dying to save their Master as they zealously proclaimed, they ran in fear to save their own lives.

Now the disciples are about to follow Jesus to Galilee. But the journey will be far different. They have now learned that they could not die for Jesus; their Master would die for them. The disciples were deserters and lovers of self, but He knew that without the shedding of His own blood, they would eternally be lost.

Do you understand this from your own life? Left to yourself, you will do nothing but forsake Christ. After having received grace, you will still easily be offended by Him. You may never have thought that you could still be so against Christ! If Christ had asked of you, child of God, what must take place for your salvation, then He never would have descended into the grave! But then salvation would have been eternally lost for you, for His curse was your curse, His death was your death; His grave was your grave. He descended so deep for you. You never expected that with all your love you would still remain in yourself one who would desert and deny Christ. But what an eternal blessing that Christ knew better than His church what had to be done. And when they all were offended by Him, He pressed ahead in His love towards sinners to die for runaway sheep. He not only died for them to pay the punishment for their sins but He also arose for them that they might have life eternal.

 

From The Everlasting Word by Frans Bakker, compiled and translated by Gerald R. Procee. Reformation Heritage Books and Free Reformed Publications, 2007. Used by permission. For further information, click here.