Jesus is compassionate, and yet – despite that compassion – some people will still not believe on Him.
This portion of Mark's Gospel reveals Jesus showing compassion to a group of non-Jewish people who had no food to eat. He knows our daily needs, and He knows our struggles – and He shows compassion to us, just as He did in abundance to these hungry people, and also His disciples who apparently had forgotten the last time Jesus performed a similar miracle and needed the same lesson taught to them again.
When He returned to the Jewish side of the lake, the unbelieving Pharisees came to confront Him and dispute with Him. They asked Him for a sign, even though He had already done many miraculous things in plain sight. This is like many modern critics who still don't believe in Jesus today, in spite of the historical records left to us from outside sources and (more importantly) from the Divinely inspired, historcially reliable Scriptures themselves. These people come to Christ with the presupposition that they won't believe in Him, no matter what.
Why would the Lord be so gracious to us as to draw us to believe in Him? Truly, there is nothing except the grace of God that makes us a believer and not one of the Pharisees.
Would Jesus sigh and turn His back on you, as He did to these unbelieving Pharisees? He knows our hearts, and He is our compassionate King and Redeemer. But He will not take it lightly if we refuse to believe on Him and trust in Him for salvation! |
