Key Passage
“But the farmers said to each other, ‘This is the owner’s son. This vineyard will be his. If we kill him, then it will be ours.’ So the farmers took the son, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.”
— Mark 12:7-8 ERV (Read Full Text)
Key Thought
“We want it for ourselves!” That’s in essence what the farmers in the vineyard were saying. It’s also what so many others—including most of us at one time or another—have said. We don’t want to have to live by God’s standards, God’s plans, and God’s values. We want the blessings of God for ourselves while doing things the way we want to do them. But, God sent his Son and our place in God’s family depends upon what we do with the Son.
Prayer
Father, thank you for sending your Son. It gives me great pain to see how he was treated. I pray the way that I live shows that he is welcome in my life as the Lord of my heart. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
Related Scriptures
We have a sacrifice. And those priests who serve in the Holy Tent cannot eat from our sacrifice. The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place. He offers that blood for sins. But the bodies of those animals are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the city. Jesus died to make his people holy with his own blood (death). So we should go to Jesus outside the camp. We should accept the same shame that Jesus had. Here on earth we don’t have a city that continues forever. But we are waiting for the city that we will have in the future.
— Hebrews 13:10-14
Then Pilate ordered that Jesus be taken away and be whipped. The soldiers used some thorny branches to make a crown. They put this crown of thorns on Jesus’ head. Then the soldiers put a purple robe around Jesus. The soldiers came to Jesus many times and said, “Hello, O king of the Jews!” They hit Jesus in the face. Again Pilate came out and said to the Jewish leaders, “Look! I am bringing Jesus out to you. I want you to know that I find nothing I can charge against him.” Then Jesus came out. He was wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to the Jews, “Here is the man!” When the leading priests and the Jewish guards saw Jesus they yelled, “Kill him on a cross! Kill him on a cross!” But Pilate answered, “You take him and nail him to a cross yourselves. I find nothing I can charge against him.” The Jewish leaders answered, “We have a law that says he must die, because he said that he is the Son of God.”
— John 19:1-7
The person that believes in the Son has life forever. But the person that does not obey the Son will never have that life. God’s anger stays with that person.”
— John 3:36
Devotional provided by Heartlight®
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