Stress Test Devotional April 28
April 28, 2024
MARK 9:42-48
Jesus has a clear strategy for helping people discover the abundant life. He teaches, and he invites, demonstrating God’s love and mercy. But he also warns that lives lived against God’s will end in destruction. Would it not be unloving to fail to warn people about the reality of judgement? In our passage today, we see hyperbole used in the service of this warning. Jesus doesn’t want us to selfamputate, but to take seriously the way we can make choices that enslave and corrupt our own souls.
Notice that this sober teaching is in service of the safety and protection of “little ones” vulnerable to exploitation.
There is nothing worse than arbitrary power. But can we not trust our loving God, who made and redeemed us, to judge well and truly?
FAMILY TIME— What kind of exploitation most disturbs you?
