Affirm
Those who sow in tears
will reap with songs of joy.
He who goes out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with him.
Psalm 126:5-6
TEXT
Mark 3:13-22
Jesus decided to ask some of his disciples to go up on a mountain with him, and they went. Then he chose twelve of them to be his apostles, so that they could be with him. He also wanted to send them out to preach and to force out demons. Simon was one of the twelve, and Jesus named him Peter. There were also James and John, the two sons of Zebedee. Jesus called them Boanerges, which means “Thunderbolts.” Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus were also apostles. The others were Simon, known as the Eager One, and Judas Iscariot, who later betrayed Jesus.
Jesus went back home, and once again such a large crowd gathered that there was no chance even to eat. When Jesus’ family heard what he was doing, they thought he was crazy and went to get him under control.
Some teachers of the Law of Moses came from Jerusalem and said, “This man is under the power of Beelzebub, the ruler of demons! He is even forcing out demons with the help of Beelzebub.” (CEV)
READ
“When the message was first given, it was given not to religious priests, but to shepherds, men of action who were fulfilling their ordinary duties. This put the message into the stream of ordinary life, instead of into the dry-as-dust speculation and religious rituals… The angels said to them that “the Sign was a Babe”—the sign was not some mystic light as India would have said, but a fact, an incarnate fact, a Babe.”
-E. Stanley Jones
His own renown, His own great name
Could never hurt God‘s only Son:
But listening to the voice of fame,
A human preacher is undone;
He lets the pleasing poison glide
Insensible through every part,
Till praise, and vanity, and pride
Corrupt his whole unwary heart.
A hymn of Charles Wesley
Declare
“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!”
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!”
Revelation 5:12-13