TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. Mark 1:1
Read: Mark 1:1-20
Listen: Mark 1
TODAY’S MESSAGE
It can be easy to make Christianity about everything except Jesus. But Christianity is about the Christ—a person born in Bethlehem and raised by Mary and Joseph. Jesus wasn’t only a human; he was also God. That’s good news. God came to earth to rescue people from their sin problems and give them life. Christianity is about who Jesus is, what he’s done and why it matters. This good news of Jesus is crucial because there’s bad news throughout history. It’s clear something is broken. The person of Jesus stepped into the brokenness to defeat death and bring life.
Today people often think of political stances or a list of rules when they think of Christianity. But that’s not Christianity. Christianity is the person of Jesus. We desperately need the good news of Jesus’s victory over death. The center of Christianity is God becoming human, dying on the cross and rising again to defeat death. Following Jesus is what makes someone a Christian. When we look at the New Testament, the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) tell us the story of Jesus, a real person—a person who does miraculous things and makes the claim to be God. Jesus’s teaching and the rest of the New Testament help us know what it means to follow him. Christianity is about Jesus—and being a Christian means following Jesus. It’s all about the person we learn so much about in the Bible.
IN YOUR CHAIR TIME TODAY
Take out your journal or open the notes app on your phone. Write at the top “Good News.” Spend some time writing about how the life of Jesus is good news. You can do this in bullet point style or through paragraphs. Include things we learn in the Bible and how you have experienced the good news of Jesus in your own life.
2023 SPIRITUAL PRACTICES
Join us all of 2023 developing a different spiritual practice each month. SPIRITUAL PRACTICES are intentional regular activities to deepen our relationship with God and mold us to be more like Jesus.
April is CONFESSION. Keep track of our spiritual practices at beyondtheweekend.org/spiritualpractices.
SPIRITUAL PRACTICES TIP. We don’t have to go it alone. The Bible teaches there can be power in confessing our sin to another trusted, mature believer and having them pray for us (James 5:16). Ask God to show you who could come alongside you so you could safely confess a struggle with sin and ask for prayer in it.
Download a printable PDF of the BTW week here.
