Mark 12:28-33 Jan. 10th, 2016

Day 10:

Mark 12:28-33

28 One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

29 Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. 30 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’[a] 31 The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] No other commandment is greater than these.”

32 The teacher of religious law replied, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth by saying that there is only one God and no other. 33 And I know it is important to love him with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. This is more important than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law.”

Ever wonder who this "Teacher of Religious Law" was?

Did he want to trick Jesus or was he curious?

Vs. 32 and 33 could be read as COCKY such as "See I told you there is only ONE GOD and you aren't it!"

Or it could be read in awe "They say you are a heretic but you speak with truth and grace and wisdom! I'd follow you!"

The point I got out of this was WATCH HOW YOU READ THE WORD!!!

When we read the OT as nothing but this mean God, we see God has having a streak of evil which HE CAN NOT HAVE!

When we read the N.T. and Jesus being all about just love (And not in a good sense but in that of a pansy sense...) we get the wrong picture... the two don't seem to mesh...

Yet the word LOVE in the OT was a word that didn't have any emotional connection to it... it was all about basically commitment!

LOVE, commit, treat others better then yourself.

I know one of the issues I have is that I frequently will expect MORE grace to be given to ME then I am willing to give to others.

I expect them to have patience with me but I am unwilling to give it to them.

Value others more than you value yourself... See them with the broken heart and extreme PASSION that God does! It will CHANGE YOU!

Amazing Love

If you watch this blog (and Praise God it does appear that many people do) you know I review alot of books.  One thing I have not done is review too often movies.  I do get a large amount of movies yet I have not shared them on here unless they were really good (And I can be really picky...)

But I decided it was time to branch out!
So here is a look at a film that I watched this week in Michigan called Amazing Love

Amazing Love DVD 

Coming soon to DVD and Blu-ray! With Sean Astin, Erin Bethea, Savannah Jayde, Sammi Hanratty, Kenton Duty, Terrence Hardy Jr, Creagen Dow and Patty Duke!

This is a film about Sean Astin (LOTR, 50 first dates) who is a Youth Pastor taking a group of his teens on an adventure via a Camping Trip.

A new young gal comes on this trip who clashes with the rest of the small group and fights and arguments ensue.  During the event of this the Youth Leader and his wife (Erin Bethea from Fireproof) try to sort out the issues and finally they do as Sean Austin shares the story of Hosea.

All of the Hosea story scenes were filmed in Israel making this a very realistic film on God's Unconditional love.
There is a key moment where Hosea realizes the God loves us despite of us.   He finds Gomer for sale and purchases her back. This scene showed the truth of Gods undying love for us.

On a 5 scale, I would say this is a 3.  The acting is middle level on the modern side mainly due to the teenager actors who were decent but not always 'real to life', during the Hosea area scenes the acting was better.  The scene settings were PHENOMENAL for Hosea.


As far as Script/Storyline goes this is a great film with a very STRONG Christian message that will change lives when they find God's unconditional love for us.


So again a 3 out of 5 star rating.  Pick this up for your family to watch and you will not be disappointed with the very strong themes and story that is weaved throughout it.