The Blessing Is Not the Destination
There is a question worth sitting with for a moment, one that cuts through the comfortable layers of religious routine and lands somewhere close to the bone: Do you love God for who he is, or do you love God for what he gives you?
That is not a question meant to produce guilt. It is an honest one, the kind that serious followers of Jesus have wrestled with across every generation. And it turns out the Bible does not shy away from it either. In fact, the Gospel of Mark spends several chapters walking us right through it, using the stories of real people, some of them Jesus' closest companions, to show us the difference between reaching for the fringe and actually following.
When the People Closest to Jesus Could Not See Him Clearly
Mark chapter eight introduces us to a blind man in Bethsaida. Jesus heals him, but the healing happens in two stages. First the man can see something, but it is blurry, people that look like walking trees. Then Jesus touches him again, and his sight is fully restored. It is a remarkable miracle, and Mark places it right at the beginning of a long section that is about something deeper than physical blindness.
Because immediately after this story, the disciples begin revealing a blindness of their own.
Jesus tells them plainly in Mark 8:31-34 that he is going to suffer, be rejected, be killed, and rise again. Peter pulls him aside and pushes back. The idea does not fit the version of the Messiah Peter has been imagining. Jesus responds with striking directness, telling Peter that he is thinking from a human point of view rather than God's. Then Jesus turns to the crowd and says that anyone who wants to follow him must give up their own way, take up their cross, and follow.
The disciples could see Jesus with their eyes. They walked with him, ate with him, watched him perform miracles. And yet they could not see what he was actually doing or where he was actually going.
That is a sobering thought. Proximity to Jesus is not the same as understanding him.
Three Predictions, Three Misses
Mark then gives us a pattern that is hard to ignore. Three times Jesus tells his disciples what is coming. Three times they respond in ways that reveal they are still chasing a different kind of kingdom.
After the first prediction, Peter rebukes Jesus. After the second, recorded in Mark 9:30-37, the disciples are caught arguing about which of them is the greatest. Jesus sits them down and tells them that whoever wants to be first must take last place and become the servant of everyone. After the third prediction, in Mark 10:32-45, James and John approach Jesus with a request. They want the seats of honor on his right and left when he comes into his glory.
Three predictions about a cross. Three responses about status, power, and position.
They were following Jesus. They were not yet following his way.
It is possible to know a great deal about Jesus without allowing his teaching to reshape how you actually live. You can be familiar with the church, comfortable in the pew, fluent in the language of faith, and still be sitting beside the road rather than walking on it.
Bartimaeus and the Question That Changes Everything
Near the end of this section of Mark, in chapter 10 verses 46 through 52, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus is sitting beside the road as Jesus and his disciples pass through Jericho on their way to Jerusalem. When Bartimaeus hears that Jesus is nearby, he starts shouting. The crowd tries to silence him. He shouts louder.
Jesus stops.
Then Jesus asks him the same question he had just asked James and John: "What do you want me to do for you?"
James and John wanted seats of honor. Bartimaeus wanted to see.
Jesus heals him on the spot. But the story does not end with the miracle. The final words of verse 52 tell us that Bartimaeus followed Jesus along the road.
At the beginning of the story, he was sitting beside the road. At the end, he was walking on it, following Jesus toward Jerusalem, toward the very cross Jesus had been describing all along.
The miracle changed what Bartimaeus could see. Following Jesus changed the direction he was going.
More Than a Decision, a Daily Direction
The invitation Jesus extends in Mark 8:34 uses a word worth slowing down for. He says that following him is something done daily. Not a one-time decision made years ago and then filed away. A daily orientation, a daily surrender, a daily choice to walk in the same direction he is walking.
John Wesley, the eighteenth-century founder of the Methodist movement, understood this deeply. He taught that God's grace does not simply forgive us and then leave us as we are. Grace keeps working, transforming us into the likeness of Jesus through a process he called sanctification. And Wesley believed that followers of Jesus needed to be intentional about participating in that transformation, through prayer, scripture, worship, communion, acts of mercy, and service. Not to earn God's love, which is freely given, but because discipleship is not just something you believe. It is something you do and become.
The goal is not simply knowing more about Jesus. The goal is becoming more like him.
Do Not Stop at the Blessing
Here is where all of this lands. Many people come to Jesus because they need something, healing, forgiveness, hope, rescue. That is not wrong. Jesus welcomed exactly those people. But the invitation does not stop at the miracle. The miracle is meant to open your eyes so that you can see where Jesus is going and choose to go with him.
The blessing is not the destination. Jesus is.
So the question worth carrying into this week is not only what you have received from Jesus, but what direction you are walking because of it. Have the blessings changed where you are going? Is there something he has been trying to show you that you have not yet been willing to see? Is there something he is asking you to surrender so that you can follow more freely?
Do not settle for sitting beside the road. Take the next step. Then take the one after that.
That is what following looks like.
That is not a question meant to produce guilt. It is an honest one, the kind that serious followers of Jesus have wrestled with across every generation. And it turns out the Bible does not shy away from it either. In fact, the Gospel of Mark spends several chapters walking us right through it, using the stories of real people, some of them Jesus' closest companions, to show us the difference between reaching for the fringe and actually following.
When the People Closest to Jesus Could Not See Him Clearly
Mark chapter eight introduces us to a blind man in Bethsaida. Jesus heals him, but the healing happens in two stages. First the man can see something, but it is blurry, people that look like walking trees. Then Jesus touches him again, and his sight is fully restored. It is a remarkable miracle, and Mark places it right at the beginning of a long section that is about something deeper than physical blindness.
Because immediately after this story, the disciples begin revealing a blindness of their own.
Jesus tells them plainly in Mark 8:31-34 that he is going to suffer, be rejected, be killed, and rise again. Peter pulls him aside and pushes back. The idea does not fit the version of the Messiah Peter has been imagining. Jesus responds with striking directness, telling Peter that he is thinking from a human point of view rather than God's. Then Jesus turns to the crowd and says that anyone who wants to follow him must give up their own way, take up their cross, and follow.
The disciples could see Jesus with their eyes. They walked with him, ate with him, watched him perform miracles. And yet they could not see what he was actually doing or where he was actually going.
That is a sobering thought. Proximity to Jesus is not the same as understanding him.
Three Predictions, Three Misses
Mark then gives us a pattern that is hard to ignore. Three times Jesus tells his disciples what is coming. Three times they respond in ways that reveal they are still chasing a different kind of kingdom.
After the first prediction, Peter rebukes Jesus. After the second, recorded in Mark 9:30-37, the disciples are caught arguing about which of them is the greatest. Jesus sits them down and tells them that whoever wants to be first must take last place and become the servant of everyone. After the third prediction, in Mark 10:32-45, James and John approach Jesus with a request. They want the seats of honor on his right and left when he comes into his glory.
Three predictions about a cross. Three responses about status, power, and position.
They were following Jesus. They were not yet following his way.
It is possible to know a great deal about Jesus without allowing his teaching to reshape how you actually live. You can be familiar with the church, comfortable in the pew, fluent in the language of faith, and still be sitting beside the road rather than walking on it.
Bartimaeus and the Question That Changes Everything
Near the end of this section of Mark, in chapter 10 verses 46 through 52, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus is sitting beside the road as Jesus and his disciples pass through Jericho on their way to Jerusalem. When Bartimaeus hears that Jesus is nearby, he starts shouting. The crowd tries to silence him. He shouts louder.
Jesus stops.
Then Jesus asks him the same question he had just asked James and John: "What do you want me to do for you?"
James and John wanted seats of honor. Bartimaeus wanted to see.
Jesus heals him on the spot. But the story does not end with the miracle. The final words of verse 52 tell us that Bartimaeus followed Jesus along the road.
At the beginning of the story, he was sitting beside the road. At the end, he was walking on it, following Jesus toward Jerusalem, toward the very cross Jesus had been describing all along.
The miracle changed what Bartimaeus could see. Following Jesus changed the direction he was going.
More Than a Decision, a Daily Direction
The invitation Jesus extends in Mark 8:34 uses a word worth slowing down for. He says that following him is something done daily. Not a one-time decision made years ago and then filed away. A daily orientation, a daily surrender, a daily choice to walk in the same direction he is walking.
John Wesley, the eighteenth-century founder of the Methodist movement, understood this deeply. He taught that God's grace does not simply forgive us and then leave us as we are. Grace keeps working, transforming us into the likeness of Jesus through a process he called sanctification. And Wesley believed that followers of Jesus needed to be intentional about participating in that transformation, through prayer, scripture, worship, communion, acts of mercy, and service. Not to earn God's love, which is freely given, but because discipleship is not just something you believe. It is something you do and become.
The goal is not simply knowing more about Jesus. The goal is becoming more like him.
Do Not Stop at the Blessing
Here is where all of this lands. Many people come to Jesus because they need something, healing, forgiveness, hope, rescue. That is not wrong. Jesus welcomed exactly those people. But the invitation does not stop at the miracle. The miracle is meant to open your eyes so that you can see where Jesus is going and choose to go with him.
The blessing is not the destination. Jesus is.
So the question worth carrying into this week is not only what you have received from Jesus, but what direction you are walking because of it. Have the blessings changed where you are going? Is there something he has been trying to show you that you have not yet been willing to see? Is there something he is asking you to surrender so that you can follow more freely?
Do not settle for sitting beside the road. Take the next step. Then take the one after that.
That is what following looks like.