Affirm
Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion,
which cannot be shaken but endures forever.
As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
so the LORD surrounds his people both now and forevermore.
Psalm 125:1-2
TEXT
Mark 8:22-26
As Jesus and his disciples were going into Bethsaida, some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch the man. Jesus took him by the hand and led him out of the village, where he spit into the man’s eyes. He placed his hands on the blind man and asked him if he could see anything.
The man looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees walking around.”
Once again Jesus placed his hands on the man’s eyes, and this time the man stared. His eyes were healed, and he saw everything clearly. Jesus said to him, “You may return home now, but don‘t go into the village.” (CEV)
READ
“This gradualistic phase of the coming of the Kingdom was clearly taught by Christ— it comes like silent leaven, grows like a grain of mustard seed, develops like the corn, which is first blade, then corn, then full corn. Jesus emphasized this gradualism and yet He was also emphatic about the catastrophic, apocalyptic coming of the Kingdom. In this He was realistic, for, though gripped by the fact of the sudden cataclysmic coming, He did not overlook or despise the quiet, unobtrusive coming of that Kingdom in individual acceptance and in corporate permeation. His realism is seen when He taught that the Kingdom is coming like lightning and coming like leaven, coming like a blast and growing like a blade, coming with ‘power and great glory,’ and yet as unobtrusive and tiny as a grain of mustard seed—and as growing!”
-E. Stanley Jones
Declare
“You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals,because you were Slain,
and with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth.”
Revelation 5:9