Mark 3 – The Listening Plan

Devotional

And when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.

– Mark 3:5

From this passage it has many times been pointed out that with God’s commands come His enabling power, too. There are over a thousand New Testament commands given to the Christian. These are not given merely to show how incapable we are, and emphasize God’s great grace, though they do that. These commands are given that we, by them, might “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). And as we engage in this exercise, we begin to experience the enabling power of our God who “works in us to will and to do His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).