Mark 3 Devotional
by Pastor Lawrence

         One of my favorite Christian songs by Michael Card is “God’s Own Fool.”  In the song, he points out that if God’s holy wisdom is foolish to the natural man than Jesus must have seemed out of his mind: “For even his family said he was mad, and the priests said a demon’s to blame, but if God in the form of this angry young man could not have seemed perfectly sane.”  I was a religion major in college at the time and was learning many “sophisticated” things, all of which were foolish and empty in my understanding.  Yet when I spoke of my faith in Christ to the religious professors, they, in turn, thought that my understanding was foolish and empty, and I began to doubt my faith in Christ.  Slowly, I stopped reading the Word of God like I should and slipped further into doubt.  But then I heard that song by Michael Card and it started to encourage me because it sticks so closely to Scripture out of passages like this one in which Christ is showing forth the wisdom and power of God, yet even the religious leaders and his own family members think he is insane. 

         The call to follow Christ is a call to die to yourself, to die to the schemes of this world and take up by faith what seems unbelievable to the unbelieving.  Consequently, if you really believe it and pattern your life by it, you will most certainly be seen by some as a fanatical fool.  Of course, there will always be doubters among the “professionals” in society, like the Pharisees, but there will also be some in your own family who question your sanity.  Even Jesus had to face this type of opposition from his own brothers.  Eventually they came around and two of them even wrote books of the Bible, but early on, they acted as his enemies and literally wanted to lay hands on him to bring him home against his will.

         My friends, let me assure you that you are not in a cult.  You are not out of your mind, and you are not a fool.  By your faith in Christ, you finally see clearly, think freely and desire the deep things of God.  Don’t let the doubters discourage you.  You walk in good company, for Christ himself was perceived to be a fool.              

         “We in our foolishness thought we were wise, he played the fool and he opened our eyes.  We in our weakness believed we were strong, he became helpless to show we were wrong.  So we follow God’s own fool, for only the foolish can tell.  Believe the unbelievable, and come be a fool as well.”  Michael Card.