Category: Devotion of the Day

SAD OR GLAD?

For they all saw him, and were troubled.
Mark 6:50.

Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.
John 20:20

The disciples saw Him in a storm but supposed Him to be a spirit. They did not recognize Him. But in our second verse they saw the risen Lord and knew Him by the print of the nails in His hands and feet.

Surely the sight of the Lord should make us glad. But sometimes we wish not that it is He. He draws near, but, like the Emmaus disciples, we have holden eyes. What should thrill us only troubles us. Indeed, as the Emmaus disciples related their experience, Jesus appeared, but they “supposed that they had seen a spirit.” He quelled their fears then as He did in John’s account by showing the marks of the cross.

We walk by faith, not by sight, these days, and are not granted a view of Him with our eyes. But in His dealings with us He still walks our seas and comes into our rooms through doors we have shut. Alas, that fear so often sees a spirit when faith should see the Saviour! What should bring triumph then brings only trouble. See Him and be glad!

WHY TROUBLE THE MASTER?

Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any further?
Mark 5:35

“The little girl is dead. It is too late now. Why bother the Master and take up His time?”

Have you come to a place where the case seems hopeless, where the prospect is “dead”? That loved one for whom you have prayed so long seems in direr straits than ever. The hope long deferred now seems impossible.

But Jesus had no funerals. And when the world says the issue is as dead as a corpse, remember that Jesus can break up funerals. We are so prone to give up and attend the interment of our hopes when God would raise the dead.

Jesus said to the ruler, “Be not afraid, only believe.” And so He says to you. When ordinary logic, when undiscerning friends say, “It is too late,” be not afraid to “trouble the Master.”

Only believer…
All things are possible,
Only believe!