Episode Transcript
CONSECRATE
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
HEAR
Mark 5:35–37 NIV
While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?”
Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”
He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James.
CONSIDER
These five words capture the two core messages which together make up the essential Gospel message of Jesus.
“Don’t be afraid; only believe.”
In the second half of today's entry (for those willing to watch or listen), Chris Tomlin and I discuss some of the particulars of this extremely consequential fifth chapter of Mark. In light of that, permit me a personal story today to get us started.
Twenty-one years ago my sister Missie was pregnant with her second child. Her first child arrived several years earlier and after a long delay, finally the second was on the way. It had been a difficult pregnancy with all sorts of complications, some of them life-threatening both to the mother and the baby.
I will never forget the night Missie called me all those years ago. She was frantic and in tears. It was getting pretty late term in the pregnancy, and owing to the high-risk nature of the pregnancy and the foreboding signs she was experiencing in her body, Missie had become convinced she was losing the baby. She asked me to pray.
The Holy Spirit immediately brought Mark 5:36 to mind.
“Don’t be afraid; only believe.”
I began to pray this word—which is to speak it in the power of the Spirit straight into the soul of my sister—and even into the life of this unborn child. I sensed the Lord was winging it directly into her heart and mind and womb. From my vantage point, it was like Jesus was there on the call, speaking those words himself—through agency of my voice. In the midst of his presence, faith began to rise and fear diminished.
I am pleased to say one week from tomorrow, some twenty-one years later, I will be officiating the wedding of Missie's second child—Eliza Susan.
“Don’t be afraid; only believe.”
This is a word Jesus authorizes all of his followers to speak on his behalf directly into the hearts and minds of anyone struggling in situations of fear and anxiety.
“Don’t be afraid; only believe.”
I commend it to you today.
And some of you reading are undoubtedly needing to hear these words of Jesus spoken directly into the chaotic storm you are facing just now. Open your heart and your mind to receive the gift of his word right now:
“Don’t be afraid; only believe.”
PRAY
Lord Jesus, you deliver us from sin and evil and death by a word. You calm the wind and the waves and deliver us from fear by a word. You restored and raise up the gift of faith in you by a word. We hear you saying, “Don’t be afraid; only believe.” And I renounce the spirit of fear. And I renounce the spirit of death. And I receive the gift of your faith in our nothing-is-to0-difficult-for-God reality. Come, Holy Spirit, and let mountain-moving faith arise. Praying in Jesus's name, amen.
