Crowds can be exciting or overwhelming. Five years ago we had a family reunion with about 85 immediate family members present. These are the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren (with spouses and fiancees) of Emil and Helen Sprick. It was an amazing time, visiting with some family that we had never met!
Do you believe in "mob mentality"? Sometimes people in a group or crowd find themselves doing things that they would never consider doing when alone. This kind of group would not give the same happy feelings shown in the photo above.
Crowds gathered around Jesus throughout his ministry: Matthew 14:19-21, with the feeding of the five thousand; Matthew 15:30-31, when he healed the lame, blind, crippled, and mute; Matthew 21:9-11, when he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. These groups saw his power and love for people. However, the same people may have been in the crowds described in Matthew 27:17-23, when Pilate asked "Then what shall I do with Jesus who is alled Christ?"
I also have found myself caught up in crowd mentality - when a group makes plans for a Sunday morning outing, when friends want to see a movie that I personally would never go see on my own. It is a constant struggle to stay in God's word and do his will. May each day grant me the strength to what God has planned.
Ephesians 3:14-19 - "for this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may granat you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith -- that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."
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