“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Mark 1:1
In the forest glows a light brimming translucent over the canopy of Pine trees standing tall. A rushing wind. A natural oasis. A haven for the supernatural voice of God to speak where waterfalls trickle alongside the riverbed. Light peering in from above to touch the face of One who’s looking above for something higher to indwell Him. It’s where He hears Him… feels Him… sees Him… knows Him by the Holy Spirit indwelling him. Holy Messiah… I will declare Your coming forever… says the voice of one ready to shout His name.
“Behold, I will send My messenger before your face who will prepare your way before you. The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord; Make His paths straight.”
Mark 1:2-3
He meets with God in the wilderness.
It’s a secret place of encounter with the Lord. An intimate retreat where God can breathe into the destiny awaiting to unfurl in days ahead. He has a purpose. Sent forth by the artistry of God’s sovereignty to hail the coming of the King. It’s his life destiny. It’s his joy… to be Jesus’ messenger. Marked from birth to carry His Name… Jesus Christ.
This man is John the Baptist.
John the Baptist was marked as the anointed predecessor and messenger of Jesus Christ to prepare hearts for his arrival. Jesus marked John before he ever met Him in person. So much so that John centered his whole life upon this purpose.
It softens hearts for Jesus’ arrival and it alerts everyone to the coming of a higher Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven. Where Jesus ushers in a new covenant of blood-borne relationship with God through Jesus. This fulfills the promise God spoke in Genesis 3:15 of the coming Messiah through the seed of the woman, birthing this Messiah who would defeat the devil and wipe away the sins of the world. Israel is waiting for him. History is foreshadowing Him. And John is declaring that now is the time of the King’s dawning.
Mark, the author of this gospel writes this narrative of Jesus’ story having been marked by him as one of the disciples. He walked with Jesus, talked with Jesus, learned from Jesus, and lived with Jesus as one of His intimate followers.
Mark’s gospel is written from his own words as led by the Holy Spirit. This is the book we are going to be walking through over the coming weeks as we dive deeper into Jesus’ life and ministry on earth.
In this study of Jesus Christ through Mark’s gospel, we are going to discover the marks of Jesus Christ and the deeper treasures of Jesus’ heart revealing how His character and love marks His people forever. In each study, we will cover a section of Mark’s gospel verse by verse, from chapter 1 to chapter 16 looking at the marks of Jesus in every word penned and the subsequent marks we carry as a result of His image imprinted on our hearts.
mark me with Your voice
like You did when I heard You
call to be Your disciple
and felt You
heal me on the seaside
You’re still my Lord
and I am Mark
marked by your love forever
What marks you?
As a person created to be moved and wooed, surrounded by stimuli ever present in the environments we exist in, you will be marked by something. Influenced by something. Imprinted with something. Who you see as your God determines who has the power to mark you. What marks you impacts you, affects you, changes you, drives you…
to be marked by Jesus
I found me when you marked me
with Your love
Your dna is in me
running through me
and I’m running towards you
held in love with You forever
passionately tender
mark me Jesus
mark me with Your love
Jesus marks you…
With His love. With His kisses on your heart.
Like He marked Mark. With His lovingkindness, saving grace. He is God and He is the Savior sent to mark us with His embrace more than every other, so that we can see the world through His lens of Heaven.
Jesus, You ask us to be marked by You. You, Lord. Mark our hearts with who You are.
Mark 1:1-8
These are the marks of Jesus we will be covering in today’s study of Marked By Jesus.
Verse 1: Divinity
Verse 2: Leadership
Verse 3: Trust
Verse 4: Indwelling
Verse 5: Transformation
Verse 6: Distinctiveness
Verse 7: Holiness
Verse 8: Holy Spirit
Verse 1: The Mark of Divinity
“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
Mark 1:1
The divinity of Jesus Christ centers as the foundation of our faith. It’s a core understand of who Jesus is and we cannot understand Him in greater depth without this imperative fundamental solidified in our hearts. Jesus is God.
Thus, the first mark of Jesus articulated in this gospel through Mark is the divinity of Christ, identified from the beginning as the “the Son of God” in verse 1. Jesus’ divinity as God must be your foundation before you can experience intimacy with Him in relationship. Knowing someone for who they are generates closeness. As we progress more and more through this gospel, we will see how Jesus ministers with intentionality in how He connects with people so that they might know who He is and want a relationship with Him as their Savior.
Everything rests on this truth of Jesus as God. Without it, anything spoken of Jesus undermines His identity.
Mark clearly states Jesus’ divinity as 100% God, so there is no mistake in definition of whom He is speaking of when he writes this gospel. This is important, considering his audience will be partly Jews who were still not accepting Jesus Christ as the Messiah and also Gentiles who were in agreeance of Jesus as the Messiah and wanted to learn more about him through this narrative.
Many people during this historical period in time possessed their own ideas about who Jesus was and many versions of what happened at the crucifixion and resurrection. Mark writes to speak from his own witnessing of Jesus’ life and identity. Mark makes it clear what He knows to be true as one of Jesus’ own disciples. He lived it. He saw it. First-hand. His declaration of Jesus as God will not be questioned and he wastes no time in opening with this truth. It serves as the underlying foundation for all other information that will be written in this gospel.
Jesus’ identity as God marks Him here on earth and transcendingly in Heaven for all time, as the firstborn of all creation.
“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through Him and for Him.” Colossians 1:15-16
You were created for Him… did you know that?
God created you for His own delight and He loves to call you His.
Jesus’ image gives us an exact picture of what God looks like, as this verse says. When we look at Jesus, we look at God. He created us to behold Him and to see Him as His is.
John the Baptist was also created for Him. John is the messenger sent to proclaim the arrival of the Son of God and prepare hearts for His coming as Mark begins this gospel narrative with the character of John.
Verse 2: The Mark of Leadership
“As it is written in the Prophets: “Behold I send My messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.” Mark 1:2
God’s mission reveals His perfect leadership and how he involves His people in His purposes.
“I send…” is what verse 2 says. God intentionally chooses to send John the Baptist. John does not go on his own accord. Thus, John constantly has the Lord guiding him along the way in how to accomplish this task of preparing the way for Jesus’ coming.
Do you want to learn how to better lead your workplace? Your family? Your responsibilities?
Learn from the heart of Jesus.
He calls John into His own story, prepares John, empowers John, affirms John, honors John and involves John in this story of the gospel. He needs John in order to accomplish the fullness of the mission’s potential. That is what selfless, humble leadership looks like.
Jesus demonstrates leadership by sending another person to prepare the hearts of the people for His coming. He doesn’t come into the world only on His own. He involves others in this process. Not just John, but also Mary and Joseph among others we will get to know in the chapters ahead.
Godly leaders develop others’ strengths and ask them to play a role in the achievement of their success.
The mark of leadership is an important trait of Jesus. He constantly shows us what a kind, strong and godly leaders looks like through His style of ministry as He calls the disciples and ministers to the people. We also see the leadership of Jesus in how He commissions John the Baptist a His predecessor, the one sent to preach about Jesus Christ’s arrival and the need to repent for receiving the gift of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Jesus sees your potential and your gifts… and He calls you into greater works alongside of Him. To further the echo of His love and saving Name in all the earth.
Jesus is a leader who loves to bring others into His story.
Verse 3: The Mark of Trust
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight.”
Mark 1:3
Jesus highlights a high level of trust in John to delegate him as the messenger of Jesus’ arrival.
God believes in John to accomplish this task. It’s no small mission to prepare the way for the King of the Universe. Yet God entrusts this responsibility to John and God knows John has the potential and power to achieve this mission because of how God made him. Thus John lives a distinct lifestyle different from many people of this culture that we will talk about in verse 6. This creates an intimate connection with the Lord for John to hear from God and be prepared himself for the day he is now stepping into… preaching the coming of the Messiah.
When God designs you, He designs you with His mission in mind.
Therefore, God trusts you to carry out what He sends you to do.
This responsibility of being the messenger sent from God is a mark of honor for John.
Furthermore, this is a mark of prophecy fulfilled through John.
These references in verses 2 and 3 about God’s messenger “preparing the way of the Lord” comes from the Prophet Malachi in Malachi 3:1. This was a prophetic word foreshadowing John the Baptist, who was God’s chosen person to go through the regions telling everyone about Jesus’ anticipated arrival.
Jesus’ arrival broadcasts via many prophecies in Old Testament scripture, but this is one that speaks of someone other than Jesus to foreshadow their arrival. I love how selfless God is to show honor to His people.
When he includes John in the narrative of the Messiah, He honors him for it, not just in the present but also in the historical foreshadowing.
I love God’s confidence to send someone else to announce His coming. He does not send a word to announce it nor an angel. He sends a human. A normal, fallen human. A man named John the Baptist. John’s birth is strategically authored by the Lord as the predecessor to His arrival. Additionally, John was born very closely to Jesus’ birth, only a few months prior as recorded by the disciple Luke, which we will talk more about in verse 4.
on the Horizon
Heaven cries
Jesus is coming
Jesus is coming
prepare the way of the Lord
Verse 4: The Mark of Indwelling
“John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for sins.”
Mark 1:4
John preaches a message of the Messiah through an indwelling of the Messiah in his heart, through the Holy Spirit.
The only way John can baptize in His name and share the message of repentance is if God indwells John with His Holy Spirit. Because this message was not given through man and was dawning upon the world new, as prophesied it would. It is a message of the Messiah sent to save as was ordained through God for the new covenant to begin. This message is a different message than what has been given to Israel in the past. The Law and its ordinances framed the former method of being made right with God and forgiven of sin. John is the first one to show up on the scene preaching the new covenant: total forgiveness of sins in one person, Jesus Christ… the Messiah.
How could he know about a new message?
This goes back to his anointed calling in verse 2 where Yahweh declares He would send His messenger to prepare the way of the Lord.
Messengers who are called by the Lord are also indwelled by the Lord at the moment of anointing.
We gain more background knowledge into John’s anointing and Holy Spirit indwelling because of what happened to him when he was in his mother Elizabeth’s womb.
John the Baptist’s mother was pregnant with him at the same time Mary was, and the two (John and Jesus) grew up cousins. The Bible does not specify their relationship growing up or their proximity but in the gospel of Luke we find out about their first interaction in the wombs when their mothers meet one day.
In Luke 1:39-56, Mary goes to visit Elizabeth. The Bible says that when John hears Mary’s voice he “leaped in her womb” (verse 41). John shows his zeal and excitement for the arrival of Jesus right here in the womb before he ever is birthed. Because that is who He was designed by God to be. Mary’s voice signaled that the baby inside Mary was close, and so John shows his excitement.
John the Baptist is seen already zealously proclaiming the Messiah before he was born. Leaping for joy at Jesus’ existence… which grounds John’s entire existence. John’s reason for living is to proclaim the coming of the Messiah and to know the Messiah is closer than ever makes him leap for joy even as a baby still in the womb. This is such a powerful scripture.
Know your purpose to minister for the glory of the Lord and you will leap for joy all your days.
Luke goes on to say that from this point on Elizabeth was “filled with the Holy Spirit” in Luke 1:41. Thus, the baby in the womb is indwelled with the Holy Spirit. This indwelling is necessary for His purpose to unfold and highlights the anointed nature of His identity as called by God.
Jesus marks John with joy the first time He ever enountered him. Right here at their first meeting in the 2 wombs of their mothers.
John’s womb collides with Jesus’ womb and the host holding John is filled with the Spirit. This anointing on John is an anointing given from birth that He would be the messenger to go before Jesus, with a message of communication that flows directly from God through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The message of Jesus Christ does not come from Him, but from the Spirit that indwells Him.
“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” Romans 8:9
Jesus comes close to His messengers to anoint them with what they need from birth. So that they can grow up with the destiny in mind of declaring the divinity of Jesus. This is why God possesses complete trust in John as we said before… because He made John specifically for this destiny.
Whether you come to know Jesus early on or later in life, God still anointed you from birth to know Him and minister for Him if you respond to that calling of choosing Him as your Lord and Savior. He loves you… let Him be Your King and He will call you His sons and daughters. Leading you by His Spirit everyday.
“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” Romans 8:14
When God chooses you to be His own, He indwells you with the Holy Spirit.
When God sends you on a mission, He indwells you with His Holy Spirit.
Verse 5: The Mark of Transformation
“Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River.” Mark 1:5
The message of Jesus beckons transformation.
At this point in the gospel, Mark tells us of John’s ministry and the responses from the people as John shares that the Lord is about to come. People are listening… responding… coming forward to say they want this forgiveness and thus, they repent of their sins so that they can be washed and cleaned in this healing. People are flocking to John in the masses. This indicates a great need in the people’s hearts right now for a Savior. If the people did not want a Savior, then they would not respond to John the Baptist either. But for them to respond to John tells us they really do long for a Savior and their hearts are being softened to receive Him.
This coming of the Lord is cushioned on both sides of His story with apostles sent by Him to baptize in His Name.
John baptizes before Jesus’ coming.
The disciples will baptize in His name after His ascension.
Here in the gospel of Mark, baptism is a public act of declaring faith in the coming Messiah whom John preaches, whereby a person receives the forgiveness of sins to trust in the coming Messiah that Israel has been waiting for. It proves they believe in John’s prophetic utterance that Jesus is coming. And that they want Him to be their Lord.
This kind of transformation is radical compared to the Old Testament days of Israel’s rebellion and involvement with others gods. At this point in history, Israel has not heard from a prophet in over 400 years and John is the first voice from the Lord in all this time. Thus, the gap in time only enhances the need to hear from the Spirit of God. It also filters hearts and reveals the ones who desire the Messiah and those who do not.
Transformation touches the many who have been waiting all this time for the Messiah. Those who desire the Messiah immediately respond to the message of John the Baptist and come forward to receive the offer of baptism and forgiveness.
By the time Jesus shows us, people are ready even more to receive Him, His teaching, His divinity, and His promise of salvation in the Kingdom of Heaven which He will declare.
Transformation only comes from the gospel message of forgiveness. No other gospel changes a heart… it must be hope in the Lord to save that regenerates a heart and compels a soul to understand the incomprehensible grace and love of the Messiah.
“And we all, who with unveiled faces beholding the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:18
John is sent to initiate transformation in the hearts of man. Through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The goal of transformation: look like Jesus.
Sound like Jesus.
Love like Jesus.
Reflect who He is in the earth.
Verse 6: The Mark of Distinctiveness
“Now John was clothed with camels’ hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.” Mark 1:6
God creates His people and ministers to be distinct.
A wild man. A man’s man. A forest man. A wilderness man. John was all this and more in terms of his distinct personality and attributes. He lived in the wilderness away from the madding crowd and in tune with the earth around him. I think this is where he grew to hear the Spirit of the Lord even more. Quiet and peaceful environments stir that closeness with God when no other distractions surround you to distract you. But John was not a typical religious man. And God did not need him to be. God birthed him through Elizabeth with the Holy Spirit indwelling him, stirring him in a different direction than everyone else.
When you follow Jesus exclusively, you become distinct in every aspect of who you are. Because your identity blossoms in the place of intimacy with Your creator. He show you who you are. Makes you who you are. Empowers who you are. Unleashes who you are, for His glory. He has a purpose for you that is for you and a personality that He engrained in you.
God’s Spirit in you only enhances your uniqueness. When God tells you who you are, you find freedom to be you how He designed your dna to flow.
John did not follow the status-quo. He did not assimilate into the culture and society around him. He lived off the land. Dwelt in the land. Thus, he was able to hear from God and develop intimacy with the Lord that would be necessary for the destiny ahead of Him. He can only have special knowledge about the Messiah if he spent alone time with God away from others. So that he could then take this message to others in its purity.
When God calls you, He makes you distinct. Unique. Unlike all the others.
God’s missions are distinct, thus he needs a distinct individual to execute that mission. He tailor makes you aligned to that mission.
Your thumbprint is yours alone.
“For You formed my inward parts; You covered my me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You for I am fearfully and remarkably made; marvelous are Your works, my heart knows that full well.” Psalm 139:13-14
You are designed to be beautifully yourself, transforming into more and more beauty and purpose as you walk with the Lord in loving relationship.
John walked confident in his distinct identity. And God would use him to touch the world.
Verse 7: The Mark of Holiness
“There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose.” Mark 1:7
Awareness of God’s holiness cultivates honor in the heart of one seeking Him.
Being chosen by the Lord makes John revere the Lord all the more. It gives John a deeper awareness of how meaningful it is to speak for the Lord because He understands His supremacy as God.
“No one is holy like the LORD! There is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.” 1 Samuel 2:2
Pressure releases when we understand no one possesses the holiness of God on this side of eternity like God does. We seek Him, but we still possess the humanity of our flesh. A heart postured towards the Lord is the key.
John acknowledges his own humanity even in being 100% confident in his calling as His messenger. He says “I am not worthy” to even touch his sandal. Because John understands the supremacy of the LORD. That HE is God and there is no other God.
We must gain a right understanding of the holiness of God over ourselves in order to be an effective minister. Giving highest honor to the Lord who he “mightier than I” as John says.
John is chosen by Jesus because John also is a son of God, chosen to glorify God and be in relationship with God. John’s substance as a son of God is not the same as Jesus’ divinity and Godhead as a Son of God. Jesus’ identity is the very godhead, found in the trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And because He wants to come to the earth and save His people, we therefore become sons and daughters of the Most High God. Created to dwell with Him, perfect and holy like Him. That is our trajectory.
One day, we will be perfect just as He is as.
“Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” 1 John 3:2
Understanding God’s holiness sustains the gravity and importance of John’s mission.
When you know that You are serving a God who is all-surpassingly high and unquestionably holy, it excites you to be a part of His mission. It humbles your heart. It defines your identity as His Beloved. It generates gratitude and honor that He could ask you to partner with Him. Honor comes before intimacy. Honor connects you in love with the one deserving of all honor who in tandem decides to give that honor in return reciprocally.
The beauty of God’s holiness… He touches the unholy to make us holy.
John is about to experience this touch from Jesus…
John never expected to be touched by Him. He doesn’t see himself as worthy enough to touch Jesus right now but as we keep reading we are going to see Jesus come close to John and ask John to baptize him in verse 9, which we will cover in the second study of Marked By Jesus. What a selfless and loving request from our Jesus… that He as a holy God would invite the unholy into His own space.
He loves us… chooses us… anoints us… covers us with His holiness and we are holy… because of Him alone. Justified by the blood of the Lamb.
John is indeed going to get to touch Jesus… and be marked by the selfless heart of the Messiah who empowers everyone around Him.
marked by Jesus
I see me how you see me
I know You as You keep me
In Your hands
to touch the world
You came to fan
into flame for You
now my heart burns for You
Verse 8: The Mark of The Holy Spirit
“I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
Mark 1:8
Relationship with Jesus Christ saturates you with the Holy Spirit.
John’s empowerment for baptism for repentance mirriors the empowerment of baptism Jesus will bring to unleash also, but it’s of a deeper well… a supernatural water source… God’s holy fire… Holy Spirit.
Jesus comes to baptize His people with the Holy Spirit. His disciples are going to experience this in deeper measure after His ascension in the book of Acts and onward.
The Holy Spirit is the literal, Spirit element of God that He indwells inside of a believer in order to connect with Him and His Spirit, and to function according to the gifts and powers it brings. Only someone supernatural can unleash this Spirit… and that is Jesus Christ right now because it has not been done before. Someone has to initiate it. So while John is sent by God to baptize with water, He cannot baptize with the Holy Spirit yet because Jesus has not yet come to initiate that. Once Jesus comes, He brings that. Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit.
“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” 1 Corinhians 3:16
We are meant to live according to the Holy Spirit.
We are meant to be filled by the Holy Spirit.
“And this is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.” 1 Corinthians 2:13
John would only be able to speak spiritual truths of the divinity of Christ if He first has the Spirit of God indwelling Him, as he experienced in the womb. John was marked by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus wants to mark you with His Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is given to you by Jesus Christ to speak His truths.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” 2 Corinthians 5:17
Jesus one mission is to sets people free from the Law of works and rules. No more animal sacrifices. No more following the Law. Jesus is every perfection in the Law altogether hosted in His body as the temple of God, and His sacrifice will be enough to save. Trust in Jesus, be forgiven of sin right then and there. Trust in Jesus, be filled with the Holy Spirit so you can continue to walk in that relationship with Him one on one.
Jesus came because He wanted to… and He wants His people to be freely in love with Him without separation and without priests blocking their sacred connection with Him. This is not according to earning salvation but according to God giving us the free right to have that.
To be baptized is to be cleansed and washed pure from the old nature. Water washed away sin. The Holy Spirit washes away the old spirit. The old flesh.
Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit so that as we turn to Him in salvation, we can now actually have the power to sustain that change with a brand new supernatural Spirit within us overcoming the old nature.
Anytime the old nature manifests, the Holy Spirit manifests greater in order to lead us in what God says and we triumph in this. This is why its’s so important to have a close, intimate relationship with Jesus so that He can walk you through where you’re at and where you want to be. He guides us in His timing and by our own choice to say yes to Him. Altogether growing in spiritual maturity along the way.
This promise of being baptized with the Holy Spirit comes true later on in the gospel and in the book of Acts, which we will get to later in this study. Everything Jesus declares will happen, happens.
“For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” 1 Corinthians 12:13
The Holy Spirit is also given to connect believers together as one, being one people in this new kingdom Jesus comes to bring us into.
Jesus loves the Holy Spirit. Jesus loves to give you the Holy Spirit, so you may be one with Him.
The mark of the Holy Spirit means we fix our eyes on the Lord with a teachable heart willing to transform in any way He asks of us. The mark of the Holy Spirit reveals itself in fruits of the Spirit growing in our lives: love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Every one of these fruits come from the heart of Jesus… as He marks us with His own Spirit.
Mark us with Your heart, Lord. That we may walk in Your Spirit for all our days.
My favorite takeaway of verses 1-8:
“Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight.” Verse 3.
This is my favorite verse in this passage because of how the radical kindness of the Lord I see in allowing us the honor of making a path for Him, alongside Him. Preparing for Him to enter in.
When I first read this verse, I thought why Lord would you want John to make your path straight? Shouldn’t you be making his path straight? But this is what the verse says… that a human, natural and fallen, would be the very catalyst of making a straight and perfect path for the coming of the Lord. God uses us as we are, to tell of His coming. To share of His Name. To speak of His heart.
We delight God’s heart when we go before him and clear away a path for the Lord to enter into to a place, a space, a heart, a soul.
God loves to include us in His story. His doesn’t keep us away because of out humanity. Rather, He bestows upon us the same responsibilities as Him, one who’s perfect and holy.
I see a wedding and a little flower girl walking down the aisle with flowers in hand… Sprinkling the petals all around as the ground beneath her feet adorns the pathway where the Bride will walk towards her beloved groom for the first time. She’s preparing the way for the Bride. Draping the ground in honor and in beauty. Letting everyone in the room know… the Bride is coming! How every heart leaps in anticipation when they see the flower girl walking, because they know the more precious moment of the day is about to begin…
This feeling of elated joy and expectation… that’s how God wants us to feel at His entry. It’s how He feels at our entry in Heaven to be with Him forever. And its’ how He feels when He come close to Him in intimate love and time spent in our relationship with Him. Day by day.
You are beautiful Jesus. Your arrival as the Beloved Bridegroom marks us forever.
Questions for Today:
- What are the 8 marks of Jesus in this passage?
- How does Jesus mark you?
- What happened to John when he was in his mother’s womb?
- What Old Testament prophet foreshadowed the coming of John the Baptist?
- What does Jesus baptize with and what does John baptize with? For what purpose?
- Why is it important to get to know the heart of Jesus through the gospel?
- How does Jesus’ trust in you empower you forward in His mission for your life?
Life and God 