Author: 7streams

Posted on

May 5


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Mark 6:45-8:26

We are in the Christ Stream reading more about the miracles of Jesus. We are reading from The Living Bible this week.

7streamsmethod.com | @7StreamsMethod | @serenatravis | #7Streams

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Jesus – you certainly show your wonderful deeds for us.  You feed and heal and instruct and love and welcome all who will come.  Thank you for being so marvelous and so loving. We wholeheartedly thank you. Amen.

Jesus is now into his second full year of ministry.  From the feeding of the 5,000 (last story we read last week), to the final story today, (the healing of the blind man) this is an 8-month period. It is spent much in Galilee, Herod’s jurisdiction, and the wonders of Jesus are making an eternal impression on many Greeks and Greek-speaking people as well. 

6:45ff The theme of Mark is “Jesus the Wonderful” and we certainly read of this today.  His walking on water is universal proof that this is God’s message bearer to us even to those who can’t bring themselves to surrender to Him as of yet. Walking on water is deity in action. He enters the boat and the storm calms immediately. Remember, that Jesus sent them on ahead and they are caught in contrary winds that have them basically rowing in place through most of the night.  Jesus comes, all is calm and they proceed. Perhaps this is a good place to make a devotional point –> in evaluation of this story, “if we try to go on ahead without Jesus, we will likely find ourselves in a storm that we cannot deal with, and wasting our energy.” We don’t want to parse that illustration in a myriad of ways but it seems to be a helpful dab of wisdom.  They soon land on shore and Jesus is healing EVERYONE he touches. Imagine the joy that was raging through the countryside like a wind of happiness!
Perhaps the day ended and the disciples -part elated, part in shock- and by nightfall they’re thinking, “uh, let’s stay with Jesus, avoid the storms, and watch all the wonders, eh?”
7 –  The Pharisees confront Jesus about how his disciples weren’t washing their hands properly before eating. The full explanation of this tradition could easily be a half day lecture /discussion so we’ll just ask this: “if you ran into Jesus personally do you ask Him to touch your life too or do you ask him about the sanitary status of His disciples hands?” Really! Jesus lets ’em have it over this one. He points out the real issue – the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and he details the matter. It’s a lesson that angered them to the point of no return.  Jesus does two more prominent healings in this chapter. [Remember there were thousands of other healings that we are not told of.] He heals a young girl of demon possession out west near the coast. The area was Phoenician. The area was cultic – thus the encounter, the mother’s reasoning and persistence, Jesus agreement and the blessing is all quite a story.  We can take away from this that we are to encourage people of any background that if they can’t get through to Jesus, keep pressing until you do – because you will.         Next he heals a deaf/mute man. Last story the request for healing came from the mother. This time it comes from everyone who knew him. What a great way to have the witness of Jesus’ power explode.  And everyone marveled.

8 – Jesus does another huge and miraculous feeding. The numbers are slightly different than the last time, but the lessons again are manifold and are to be taken to heart.  The disciples are worried about food when they should be ingesting the deeper lessons that were unfolding in front of them. The power that Jesus has is because of His deity. Notice that seven loaves becomes enough for everyone. The bread was broken in Jesus hands but it multiplied in the disciples’ hands. Seven = The Holy Spirit at work, and it happened in the hands of the disciples.  Memo to the Disciples is a memo to us today: “let the Holy Spirit use YOUR hands to do His work. Get in the Holy Spirit and stop worrying so to take part in the wonders of God.”

Next the Pharisees arrive and demand a sign and Jesus just walks away from them. I mean who’s got time for these jokers who have no intention of following Him?  He then heals a blind man from Bethsaida. This is a town that Jesus cursed for their unbelief. [Mt. 11:21 -It’s now a deserted archaeological dig with a sun god carving that’s visible even today, btw!] So Jesus takes him outside Bethsaida to heal him. Jesus heals him in his second “attempt” [2nd demonstration, actually]. The first gesture to heal has a comical result. Memo to the disciples and to us: “when you endeavor to minister healing and the immediate result is not the desired result – persist. Pray again. Reach out again. Be like the Syro-Phoenician woman and plead. With the deaf man, the whole town showed up to ask.  Get more people involved in healing ministry. Don’t go it alone. P.U.S.H. [Pray UntilSomething Happens] I mean, do you like to pray with quitters? Why would God ever want us to be quitters?
Posted on

May 4


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Hosea 8:1-9:9

We are in the Exile Stream reading from The Living Bible.

7streamsmethod.com | @7StreamsMethod | @serenatravis | #7Streams

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Lord Jesus, make our lives significant like yours and the prophets were meaningful and still are as what was spoken still speaks today.  None of us want to come to the end of our lives only to hear that we have inherited a whirlwind. Help us live lives that count for the kingdom and for good for your Kingdom. Amen.

8 – We are back in the north and Hosea is speaking to a nation that is going to fall in 722 B.C. It’s about 130-135 years earlier than what was read yesterday in Jeremiah.  Hosea reminds them that they have set up their entire government apart from God’s leading. These are the people who erected a golden calf exactly like in Exodus 32 (500 years prior) just to make sure the people were deliberately disobedient and not going to Jerusalem to worship properly. This establishing of this idol is described as it happened in I Kings 12-13.  And Hosea is hitting the issue right between the eyes almost two centuries later.  They have been worshiping this calf so long that they may not even be hearing Hosea as he rebukes them.  The reference, “… sown to the wind and reap a whirlwind” is a motif in literature.  Well  Hosea said it first!  Israel has “boxed herself in”. She thinks Assyria is a friend.  But they’ll be the ones who “turn them into mince meat!”.  The reference of “returning to Egypt”, Hos. 8:13 is a metaphor for returning to slavery.  The nation is on the verge of being burnt to the ground and any survivors hauled away.
9 – For running from God and sacrificing to others, their idolatry will even affect the land and their crops.  At this point, every offering they bring to God is a stench to him; it’s polluted. The bondage and poverty they have “earned” is upon them.  Hosea has been speaking to them, trying to avert ‘judgment day’ but he is labeled a crazy man.  Israel is NOT listening. The “depraved as in Gibeah…” verse is in reference to the horrid rape situation in Judges 19 and the hideous aftermath of it all.  Hosea reminds them that Israel is just as bad as this now.  For this, their children will be hauled away, their sons are doomed, pregnant women will be treated in ways that are too disturbing to describe.  Why is all this going to happen? because Israel will not listen or obey.  I would say “God help them” but they don’t want his help.
Posted on

May 3


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Jeremiah 2-4

We are in the Prophetic Stream as we read from The Living Bible this week.

7streamsmethod.com | @7StreamsMethod | @serenatravis | #7Streams

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Dear Lord: The prospects of the ungodly are oh so grim. The end of the disobedient is certain. I pray we are ready and alert souls who will have ministry in mind as we encounter those who have come the the end of themselves and are therefore ready to hear of The Savior. Amen.

Here are some statistics: Jeremiah spent 20 years warning Judah to repent, 20 years amid the sabres of war as Babylon was sacking the southern Kingdom, and 20 years in retrospect lamenting the destruction of the land of God; Judah and Israel.

2 – The nation has fallen so far. God wants to know, and Jeremiah is assigned to tell them: “you once loved me so much. I defended you and fed you. Anyone who threatened you paid severely.  Now you will worship anything as long as it isn’t Me. There is a national attitude of “whatever buddy!” toward God.  Even the priests and leaders are given to Baal and Molech.”  God is going to continue pursuing Judah and will be trying to love them, but things do not look good.  They were so free and prosperous and strong but have turned themselves into slaves. They rebel at every turn.  They have become more proficient at sinning than those who have had no training in goodness (and vice versa!) It’s as if those who were lost all along come to the Israelites to learn about ‘how to be better sinners.’  It is so utterly pathetic what these people have turned themselves into.  They are dirty dirty dirty, lusting 24/7, anyone who comes to minister to them gets murdered, …and they think that a foreign government is going to be of aid to them!
3 – Israel, called out to be God’s bride, has turned itself into a trolling whore that will expend herself on anyone but her husband, and she doesn’t come home.  God is willing to forgive and reunite with them but their sinfulness is a bit more appealing to them at the time.  Judah held onto God a bit longer (the southern Kingdom) but they have slouched in their pursuit of God too.  Manasseh is king at present.  He’s the one who had Isaiah killed and he is turning out to be the darkest leader the Semitic world has ever seen.  His Satanic wretchedness far outdid Ahab. Manasseh was throwing live babies and young children into fires at evening rituals as a sacrifice to Molech.  Here was Jerusalem – no city had been so blessed, yet no place or people on earth had descended so far down from so far up. They had even become more wicked than their relatives in Israel; the northern kingdom. Judah was disaffectionately dubbed, “the adulterous wife”. And that was just the tip of the matter as for how bad they had become.
4 –  The opening of ch. 4 sounds like, “this is your final chance to exit from the highway to destruction…”  God wants to see total transformation of His people, yet they are bent on wickedness.  and the enemy army is on the march to come flatten them!  The sword is raised, a lion is at the gate, their chariots and horses are coming, war and death and crushing will engulf Judah. It is going to be awful – and Jeremiah can see it prophetically. It will happen.  The first influx of Babylonian soldiers enter Judah in 605 B.C. – 21 years after Jeremiah is called into ministry. The siege is progressively moving across Judah until 586 B.C. when Jerusalem is sacked and the Temple is destroyed.  Jeremiah is warning them for two decades to turn but God’s people are stubborn, dull to truth, skilled at deviance, and moronic about righteousness. It’s amusing that, as the enemy is closing in on them, some of the Judeans are pausing to put on mascara and “doll up” themselves.  That’s as dopey as the town being on fire, and stopping the work of dousing the fire so you can have time to wash and paint your house … before it burns to an ash heap!  Something is really wrong with these people. The sad thing is that it is an illustration of all of us.