The Grands Letter

Dear Grands,

Mark 1:15, Jesus said, “’The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand;

repent and believe in the gospel.’”

Mark writes as if he were in a terrible hurry. This may be in part because

he is writing to the Romans, who themselves were hurried in many things.

Two very important words he cites are repent and believe. Repentance,

which is having “a serious change of mind and heart about a previous point

of view or course of behavior,” is mentioned only three times. But belief,

which means having faith in or trusting, is cited 20 times. Repentance deals

with things in our past; belief deals with what is available in our future. Of

course, negative or evil things in our past have to be dealt with before we

can anticipate good things in our future.

Mark notes for us that Jesus stopped a huge storm on the Sea of Galilee,

cast a host of demon spirits out of a man, healed a lame man and forgave

his sins, healed a woman, who simply touched His outer garment, and

raised a 12-year-old girl from the dead. Now, what is your need? What is

mine? What are we facing today for which we need Jesus’ power? He

knows, so why does He not just do what’s needed? Maybe we’ve not

repented from our past. Maybe we have not truly believed in Him for what

we now need. Instead of asking, “Why doesn’t God do something?” maybe

we need to ask, “Why haven’t we done what we should?”

Love and prayers ever and always,

Nana & Dado III

Gene L. Jeffries, Th.D.

Springdale, Arkansas