Mark 3: 20-30 (NLT)
One time Jesus entered a house, and the crowds began to gather again. Soon he and his disciples couldn’t even find time to eat. When his family heard what was happening, they tried to take him away. “He’s out of his mind,” they said. But the teachers of religious law who had arrived from Jerusalem said, “He’s possessed by Satan, the prince of demons. That’s where he gets the power to cast out demons.” Jesus called them over and responded with an illustration. “How can Satan cast out Satan?” he asked. “A kingdom divided by civil war will collapse. Similarly, a family splintered by feuding will fall apart. And if Satan is divided and fights against himself, how can he stand? He would never survive. Let me illustrate this further. Who is powerful enough to enter the house of a strong man like Satan and plunder his goods? Only someone even stronger—someone who could tie him up and then plunder his house. I tell you the truth, all sin and blasphemy can be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. This is a sin with eternal consequences.” He told them this because they were saying, “He’s possessed by an evil spirit.”
One of my beloved authors is writer and thinker Henry David Thoreau. In what is perhaps his most famous observation, he writes, “most men live lives of quiet desperation.” While his statement mentions men specifically, it resonates with all of us in a spiritual sense. At some point in our Christian walk, we will come to a crossroads. (Truth be told, there are many crossroads along the way.) And we will have a choice to make. We must choose to continue along the path of Jesus, giving him not only our outward lives (sharing Christ with others, going to church service, steering clear of negative environments) but our inward lives (thoughts, feelings, fears, desires) as well.
Jesus made it abundantly clear in the reading this morning that a house that is divided will crumble. What does this mean for us? To explain, allow me to paint a word picture for you. Imagine: We’ve been walking with the Lord for a while. We do everything that a “good” Christian is expected to do. We attend church service at least once a week, drop money in the offering, shake the pastor’s hand and tell him life is great, slap on a smile and make cheerful banter at work, spend time with the spouse or the kids. And everything appears to be wonderful. On the outside. We keep up this façade because we feel that is what we’re supposed to do. Meanwhile, buried beneath your heart within the deep recesses of your soul, there is a “quiet desperation,” an unexplainable yearning for something more, something eternal. Despite the pain and confusion associated with such feelings, we must turn them over to the Savior as well.
If we give God the outside without consecrating the inside as well, our house, our lives, will crumble.
