Zondervan Blog

Reader Favorites from February: Top 9 Blog Posts + other Posts of Note

Posted: 02 Mar 2012 10:42 AM PST

More Posts of Note

1. Discover WHO You are and WHOSE You Are A recap of Kary Oberbrunner's livechat on how to find your identity and purpose in Christ. I especially like Kary's "Secret Name" Test, which I recommend you check out in the post.

2. On Ash Wednesday - Remembering We're Dust A rich contemplative piece from Walt Wangerin, Jr.'s Lent devotional book, Reliving the Passion.

3. Pursuing a Manhood that's Honest, Strong, and ... Weak? Author Wes Yoder on the essential ingredients of manhood. (They may not be what you think.)

4. God is With You, and He Doesn't Quit Feel like you're facing an impossible challenge? Find out how God was faithful to his people in helping Nehemiah rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Excerpt from Kristen Feola's (@kristenfeola) book The Ultimate Guide to the Daniel Fast.

5. Epic Love is in Little Choices via Stasi and John Eldredge (@johneldredge). Excerpt from the Love and War DVD Group Study.

6. Imagine that God Is Love - It's one thing to know "God is love," and another thing to see what this means for us and our world. A thought-provoking piece via Scot McKnight (@scotmcknight) from One.Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow.

7. Do You Live to Please the Masses or the Maestro? What's Jesus's measure of success? What's yours? Excerpt from XEALOTS by Dave Gibbons (@davegibbons).

8. An American Rags-to-riches Story See if you can guess who the story is about before the reveal. Excerpt from Ben Carson's new book, America the Beautiful.

9. Two Eyewitnesses Testify on Heavenly Worship Two people have seen God's throne room and lived to tell about it. Rory Noland (@RoryNoland) shows us what we can learn from their experience. Excerpt from Worship in Heaven as it is on Earth.

10. & 11. Smell of Dirt, Magnify the Lord and Making Time (How to Slow Down), two excerpts by Ann Voskamp (@annvoskamp) from her book Selections from One Thousand Gifts.

What was your favorite post from February? Let me know in a comment, and I'll see if I can publish more you will like in March.

And thanks for spending your time with Zondervan Blog. I hope to interact with you in the comments soon!
- Adam Forrest, Zondervan

True or False: Your February felt just like this image. Leave your answer in a comment.

(Image: From a February calendar page by unknown artists, 1480s, [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. This post does not represent the views of Zondervan or any of its representatives. The writer shares these personal opinions for information purposes only. To receive new blogposts in your reader or email inbox, subscribe to Zondervan Blog.)

A Roadmap for Jesus Followers, Galilee to Golgotha [Excerpt by Walt Wangerin, Jr.]

Posted: 02 Mar 2012 07:10 AM PST

Excerpt from Reliving the Passion: Meditations on the Suffering, Death, & the Resurrection of Jesus as Recorded in Mark (eBook) by Walt Wangerin, Jr.

Going to "Galilee"

Near the beginning and then near the end of Jesus' passion... the same promise is repeated...

I will go (he is going) before you to Galilee [Mark 14:27-28 & Mark 16:6-7]. That promise is both a call and a consolation.

Surely it's meant to be factual: the disciples will in fact meet the resurrected Lord in Galilee.

But since Mark is writing his Gospel for disciples of another time and another place (Christians persecuted in Rome in the latter half of the first century, people who would never see a geographic Galilee)… there may lurk another, deeper meaning in the word [Galilee]...

In "Galilee" his enemies appeared and criticized him even for healing and doing good.

In "Galilee" his enemies appeared and criticized him even for healing and doing good. From this "Galilee" Jesus' itinerary was south to Judah, up to Jerusalem, where enmity hardened into persecution, up Golgotha even to the cross. Jesus' person "going," then, was a trip through suffering and death to resurrection.

If Jesus "will go before" his disciples from Galilee as he had gone before, then this is a call to follow him down the hard road of conflict, criticism, enmity, persecution, suffering and death and resurrection. So the passion story becomes a roadmap for all of Jesus' followers (who deny themselves and take up their crosses) whether Christians martyred in the first, or Christians bold in the twentieth, centuries.

Jesus' Passion - a roadmap for Christians

"The passion story [of self-denial, death, and resurrection] becomes a roadmap for all of Jesus' followers..."

Read [the story of Christ's Passion], then, as a detailed itinerary of the disciple's life.

He, in 'going before us,' is always near us, however hard the persecution.

But hear in it as well the constant consolation – not only that he, in "going before us," is always near us, however hard the persecution; but also that we, in going his way to Galilee, will see him as he told you. The dearest comfort in this promise is that precisely by taking the Way of the Lord, we will meet the Lord himself. In suffering is he revealed! In the experience of our own crosses is he made manifest. Exactly so were the Christian Romans consoled by Mark's Good News – the story of Jesus. Exactly so ourselves, in our more distant deserts...

From Galilee to Golgotha: first we study the map, the Passion; and then – actually traveling the passionate path ourselves, "going" even as we were called – we will see him too, just as he promised we would.

Master, grant me, in the study of your story, both love and faith. Love will make me attentive to all you do. Faith will make me bold to follow you. I beg to see you, O my Savior! Amen.

- Walt Wangerin, Jr.