Mark 6-8

 The religious leaders knew exactly the meaning of Jesus’s story, but wanted to protect their authority and standing in their world. The rue King was talking about another kingdom where each person has the freedom to respond and live. Most cultures emphasize the need to get ahead, protect the power of authority, and repeat what has always worked to maintain that system. Thinking outside the box to think God has always been doing things different than we are used to never enters our mind. Our Triune God continued to reach out to us personally to get our attention, that we might surrender voluntarily to His authority and presence. 

“If someone spends their life saying “I want nothing to do with God,” what would it imply for God to drag them into His presence forever? That wouldn’t be love—it would be coercion. Hell is, in a tragic sense, the ultimate honoring of human freedom. God respects our dignity enough to let us choose—even when that choice defies Him.” - Scott Sauls

“The religious leaders did not miss the meaning of the parable. They realized the parable was about them. Jesus told the parable in an attempt to get the religious leaders to look at themselves, to think about what they were doing, and to think about the teaching of scripture. Instead, the parable stirred their anger even more. They pushed forward with their self-protecting goal of eliminating him. “They wanted to arrest him” (Mark 12:12). Jesus’s popularity with the crowd was the only thing that prevented them from acting on their desire to arrest him.” - Excerpt, Following Jesus: Discipleship in the Gospel of Mark by Steve Langford

“I’ve continued to wrestle with what it really means to believe in a God whose power is love, not control, not coercion, but patient, freeing, persistent love. It’s honestly been both liberating and unsettling. I used to think God’s power meant God could do anything. But I’m starting to believe that the most powerful thing God does… is love us without forcing us.

That kind of love undoes me. Because I still catch myself wanting to fix people, manage outcomes, or control situations, especially with the people I love most. But love that controls isn’t really love. And the older I get, the more I realize how much of my own healing has come not from someone forcing me to change, but from someone refusing to give up on me.” - Paul Dazet