Mark 1

This gospel opens like a sawed-off shotgun blast. He starts right in with John the Baptist but quickly launches into Jesus' baptism, calling a few disciples, and his ministry of healing and delivering those who were tormented by demons.

There's a ton of good stuff in here, but I really just got stopped by the demon parts. From reading this, it seems like demons were oppressing people left and right. And the people around them were aware that that's what was going on. So was first century Judea just more of a demon magnet than 21st century America? I doubt it. Why don't we recognize the work of the demonic forces around us? I think it's because of satan's number one battle strategy. To lull us into a sleepy forgetfulness that we are in a war. That spiritual forces are waging warfare all around us battling for every soul. We don't fight back because we aren't even conscious we're on the battlefield.

We also see here in Mark how Jesus prepared Himself for this all out war against the Kingdom of God. In verse 35 Mark tells us that Jesus snuck away early in the morning to pray. We also saw that He spent a forty day stretch praying too.

I'm not a morning person. I like to use that excuse for a lot of things. Recently, I've felt tugged toward spending more and more time in prayer. And I think what I get from this chapter is that I need to actually get up, early in the morning, and get prepared for the battle I face each day. So that when I see a cranky co-worker I first see demonic influence trying to weaken our team instead of just someone being a jerk. Or when I feel a rush of impatience waiting for my daughter to climb in the car in slow motion, I will speak to the spirits that are trying to make me lose focus on Him before my day even really gets started. I'm not saying there's a demon behind every corner, but I am saying we have only one enemy. And we are in a war. And we should gear up before we go out there so we will have the faith to see the power of Christ heal people and set them free.