SCRIPTURE:
“As he was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!’ ‘Do you see all these great buildings?’ replied Jesus. ‘Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.’"
Mark 13:1-2
OBSERVATION:
Jesus was foretelling the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus later continues and expounds in telling of the signs of the end times and the tribulation to come. All of this leads to scripture 24, and the coming of the Son of Man, Jesus. There are several themes like this in the Bible of “loss before finding,” “sacrifice to gain,” “turn from to turn to new.” To me, the most resonating is “death to life,” which is what Jesus did in sacrifice that we would have life internal. So, as these verses speak of destruction, they are a precursor to a new era and the need for spiritual renewal, that we would think about the worldly things we are attached to and letting go to grasp the importance of spiritual growth and turning to God.
APPLICATION:
In all honesty, there are areas of my life and my past that I sometimes revert to, recall, and hold on to, knowing that these things of the past are momentary and transient, and not eternal. My battle is with the momentary gratification. My heart needs to be that each day I will release the “buildings of the past,” to clear the landscape for what new things of God that the Lord is and will lay before me, renewing a new heart, building a new mind with new ways that are all about God’s plan, purpose, will, and ways.
PRAYER:
Lord, please lead and guide me to turn from and discard the things of the past in my life that can lay as rubble to get in the way of the new landscape of what you are doing in my life and building anew.
