Jesus, Teacher and Savior

Mark 4:2,
"And he taught them many things by
parables, and said unto them in his
doctrine,"

MARK 4:1-12

The Greek word used here for "doctrine"
means "teaching" and occurs a total of 30
times in the New Testament.
The four gospels refer to Jesus teaching 43
times and preaching 19 times, and six
verses refer to Him preaching and teaching
in the same verse.
This would show that Jesus spent twice as
much time teaching as He did preaching.

Jesus' teaching is the basic building block of
making disciples and a stumbling block to the
religious.
Why is it that a person who is seeking so
hard to please God can be rejected, while
a person who has not sought God at all can
come into a righteous relationship with Him?
This is an important question and its answer
is one of the most profound doctrines in
scripture.
The answer is faith and its object.

The Jews were zealous for the things of God,
but their faith was in themselves.
They were trusting that they could earn God's
favor by their acts of righteousness.
On the other hand, the Gentiles had no
holiness to trust in.
So, when they heard the Gospel message
that Jesus paid our debt for us, they readily
accepted His "gift" of salvation, while the
religious Jews could not abandon their trust
in themselves for salvation.

The same problem exists today. Millions of
church people are trying to live holy lives,
but they do not have a true faith in Jesus as
their Savior.
If they were to stand before God and He was
to ask them what they had done to deserve
salvation, they would immediately start
recounting all their acts of holiness such as
church attendance, giving receipts, etc.

Regardless of how good our actions are
compared to others, they always come short
of the perfect standard of God.
The only response to this kind of question
that would grant us entrance to heaven is to
say, "my only claim to salvation is faith in
Jesus as my Savior."
Let Him be the object of our faith. He is
all our need.