Mark 8

Mark 8:1-3:
In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away.

By today’s new ‘Church Leadership’ standards Jesus was a clueless leader who obviously wasn't in tune with the 'worship experience' needs of His time and culture. Fact is, when you read the New Testament biographies you don’t read about Jesus discussing the latest leadership philosophies, church branding strategies, church marketing practices or the latest ideas for designing and creating holistic audio visual environments to help create the perfect mood for people to have an engaging worship experience. Instead, when you read the New Testament you discover that Jesus often taught outside and Jesus’ teaching events were far from seeker-sensitive. When you compare Jesus' leadership practices to the new and improved leadership principles of Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Leadership Network and others you'd have to conclude that Jesus was a complete failure as a leader and was in the dark when it came to meeting the felt needs of His target market. A prime example of Jesus' utter cluelessness is found in the Gospel of Mark chapter 8. In the opening verses of that chapter we learn that Jesus held, for lack of a better term, a three day long “outdoor church conference” where He was the featured speaker.

Yes, you read that correctly! Those who attended Jesus' three day long ‘outdoor church conference’ were outside, exposed to the sun, the wind and the elements. Oh and there was no food provided until the END of the event. What was Jesus thinking?!

Mark 8:15:
15 And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”

"This kind of leaven is rarely spoken about in the Church. What occurred in the evangelical Church the past few years related to national politics justifies the need for the focus of this article. In my opinion, many in the evangelical Church have unwittingly succumbed to the leaven of Herod during this season by mixing their brand of politics with Christianity. As a result, their faith was polluted.............. Many Christians on both the Left and the Right act as if their particular political party represents God’s Kingdom. However, Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world“ (John 18:36). If you believe your party perfectly represents His kingdom, the leaven of Herod has infected you."
--Joseph Mattera ; God TV

Mark 8:34-35:
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
35 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.

One does not become free from the Powers by defeating them in a frontal attack. Rather, one dies to their control. Here … the cross is the model: we are liberated, not by striking back at what enslaves us – for even striking back reveals that we are still determined by its violent ethos – but by dying out from under its jurisdiction and command. --Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski. The Matrix, directed by Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski (Burbank: Warner Bros., 1999), DVD.

. Jesus does not ask for more self-denial … It is not a question of denying certain things to oneself, like ice cream during Lent, but of disowning the ego’s claim to possess this life. The task is not ego-conquest by means of the ego (a persistent delusion of many of the ‘new spiritualities’ today), but ego-surrender to the redemptive initiatives of God in God’s struggle against the antidivine powers of the world. That means our abandoning egocentricity not only as individuals, but as cultures, as nations, even as a species, and voluntarily subordinating our desires to the needs of the total life system. And because the ego has been entangled with thousands of tendrils from the alienating System of Domination, the process of dying to one’s conditioning is never fully over.” -Václav Havel, Living in Truth, trans. Jan Vladislav (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1987), 45, 56

Mark 8:36:
What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?

This is the question that I believe most men make the most effort to ignore. He wants and wants and gets and gets but has to be careful not to take any moments to consider what it will mean to “have it all.” Except for the ones still active in this generation, every man who “had it all” since the beginning of time has died. As many or more probably died trying to “get it all.” A surgeon wrote that if a man is inflicted with a fatal injury, that it can take about 5 minutes for the entire body to shut down and die. So at any given time, considering the fragile nature of life, all of us may be only 5 minutes away from death. Are you ready to meet it? Where does your being go from there? Its something we have to address in life becuz in death there are no more questions about it.