Cross City Church

If we are to glorify the Father, we must glorify the Son because the Father is actively seeking, advancing and enforcing the glory of Jesus who gives us life through his words.

Here Jesus is being challenged in his teaching and the way his disciples are conducting themselves. He responds by establishing himself and his teaching as the new norm and highlights the role of fasting in this new norm.

What a friend we have in Jesus… the friend of sinners who was not ashamed to sit with us, now lets go find his sinners and freshly amazed, sit with them and tell of the One who sat with and for us.

Jesus looks straight in the eyes of the leaders of Israel and tells them that He is the “Son of all Mankind”, holding a position with full divine nature by which he can forgive sins.

As Jesus interacts with the leper, so he does with us. When we humbly come to him, his holiness overpowers our uncleanness and he takes our place as the one put outside of the camp. 

At this point in Mark, we have found Jesus to be the incognito Christ whose primary mission from the Father was to preach the truth of the glorious kingdom that even reigns over demons and sickness. And he effortlessly overpowers and expels all demons and sickness he engages, while refueling and re-centering in significant times of prayer with the Father.

Jesus Christ possesses full authority over all.  His teaching and commands over the spiritual realm both describe and demonstrate his divine power.

As Jesus calls the first of his disciples, we see the basics of how he calls all of his followers. He calls. We obey.

The long-awaited King has finally arrived and there is only one rightful response--- to repent and believe.

Jesus, the light of the Word, the Son of God, started his ministry by defeating Satan’s temptations and being upheld by the Father’s angels before beginning his gospel preaching ministry.

The Father has authoritatively spoken now through his Son who He has always deeply loved and has made effectively and sufficiently made this known to all the world.

As we begin the book of Mark, we see John the Baptist introducing the true substance of the the faith that was promised from old, Jesus. John baptized with water, but Jesus would baptize with the Spirit of God.

The aim of our testimony and instruction to our next generation and generations beyond is the maximization of their worship, so our instruction goes beyond teaching facts to the appeal to their hearts to love and adore the God of Glory. And they must do the same.

Spiritual Origins is a treasure of revered worship, not a field of debate,....something only God knows and reveals. We are to learn, embrace and meditate on this source of joy and help others do the same.

The joys found with God are incomparably better than anything this earth has to offer.

Believing the right things about what Jesus has done for us is important and necessary. It’s just as important to believe correctly how he views us and how he responds to us when we fail. In Hebrews 4, we see the picture of Christ, our Great High Priest, who moves towards us in our weakness and leads us to the throne of grace so we can receive what we most need.

The new life Christ has given us is one where the norm of our life is the continual prayerful connection with God in which we experience regular joy as we notice his loving works and fill our minds with his loving and blessing instruction form his letter to us… the Bible.

The two ways of life are promised here. Joy and exaltation are provided by God’s promised delivery to those who will earnestly seek Him in his self-revealed information, promises and reflection on his abundant faithfulness in our life. The other option is to be stopped by God.

The sweet life of the blessed is formed by a fixed delight upon the words of God mulled over throughout our days.

Prayer is the highest but hardest spiritual tool we have been given to wield.

As Paul closes out the letter to the Colossians we see a snapshot into the people that he has invested in and have invested in him, and we look at the ways that God calls each of us to invest in the health and growth of our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ.

We share the mission of Christ by praying to our Father together for this mission and carefully engaging each outside soul God has given us.

Paul continues in Colossians 3 to give instructions to the family and the household within God’d kingdom. Here we look at God’s call to bondservants and masters and what we can learn about how to live under authority structures that God has placed over us.

As we head towards the end of Colossians, Paul begins to give instructions on how God intends the family to function within the household of God. How should children relate to parents, and how should parents relate to children?

Human marriages are designed to brilliantly transmit the love between Christ and his Church Bride. Christ created that marriage and its nature and the human marriages must mirror it in order to yield the joyful life and light of the gospel it was designed for.