Knowing vs Following — Living The Everyday

Mar 8

Mar 8 Knowing vs Following

For the last couple of weeks my daughter and I have been having our own Bible study together on Tuesday evenings after my husband leaves for his Bible study and her brother is in bed. I have realized that if I want my daughter to know more about Jesus and the Word, I can’t just flop a 2000+ page Bible in front of her and say, “Read it and do what it says.” Talk about overwhelming. It’s overwhelming for many adults let alone an almost 12 year old. But, that is no excuse. The page numbers are what overwhelms, not the content; because once you begin reading and purposefully seeking, the pages and words come alive.

Brooklynn and I have been in the book of Mark absorbing 2 chapters at a time then spending time just chatting. Mostly about what she wants to discuss, but our time together begins in the word.

There’s a scene that we read about in Mark Chapter 3 beginning at verse 7 where large crowds follow Jesus. It says:

7Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed. 8When they heard about all he was doing, many people came to him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon. 9Because of the crowd he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him, to keep the people from crowding him. 10For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him. 11Whenever the impure spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” 12But he gave them strict orders not to tell others about him.

So here’s this man, named Jesus. He’s gaining fast attention by crowds because of his great healings and messages. Some are following him because he has interesting words he is speaking, others are following because they can receive physical gains and healings by him; but they didn’t know or understand his true purpose from coming. They didn’t know the cross laid before him. The only ones who truly knew who Jesus was, fell from His presence a long time ago. But we’ll come back to that.

The problem we have above, is here is this massive crowd swarming Jesus, they know OF him, know he’s a healer and great teacher, but do not grasp WHY he came.

Many have wondered why Jesus gave strict orders for the impure spirits to not speak about him or tell others who he was. The problem was, the Jews were again an oppressed people by the Romans. The Jews thought their Messiah would be a political king and leader. He would come in and save the day politically and remove the heavy handed oppression of the Romans from their lives. Jesus warned the evil spirits not to reveal his identity because he did not want them to reinforce a popular misconception (1) of who he was and why he came.

So here we have Jesus, surrounded by a massive crowd, yet 99% of them don’t understand why he came. They’re pursuing him for their own personal gain, for their own personal reasons. Knowing about Jesus, or even believing that he is God’s son, does not guarantee salvation. (2)

When we choose to follow Jesus, that is based on the knowledge we have of Him. However, following isn’t out of self ambition, but out of obedience. We follow Him because we know WHO He is, WHY He came, and the REASON He died on the cross for us. It is from this that the deep longings of our heart produce a desire to put our faith in Him into action, not just a knowledge of Him, but begin walking in obedience to the words He spoke. We can have all the head knowledge we want about Jesus, study His ways, know what He did, and be an expert in His content. We can read countless books on Him, study historians, and truly be an expert in content. But unless we put that head knowledge into action, His commands, our knowledge OF Him is just that, head knowledge and nothing more.

James 2:17 says:

In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

Holy week is fast approaching. This is the week we reflect on when Jesus bore every sin that happened or will happen upon Himself.

I want to encourage you to spend time in the Word, not just to gain head knowledge of who Jesus was, but to allow His Words and why He came to flood over you. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a new understanding of who Jesus is. Ask Him to take your knowledge of knowing and transform it into following and obeying.