I AM

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

I AM

Luke 22:66-71

66 At daybreak the council of the elders of the people, both the chief priests and teachers of the law, met together, and Jesus was led before them. 67 "If you are the Christ," they said, "tell us." Jesus answered, "If I tell you, you will not believe me, 68 and if I asked you, you would not answer.   69 But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God."  70 They all asked, "Are you then the Son of God?" He replied, "You are right in saying I am."  71 Then they said, "Why do we need any more testimony? We have heard it from his own lips."

NIV

Here we have it, right from the lips of Jesus, he is the Son of God. What more evidence do we need? We could read all of the scripture, every word from the first to the last and still all the truth we actually need is right here from his very lips. Of course this makes all the rest of scripture have great significance and does indeed mean we should not only read it all, but search it diligently for truths to live by. Unfortunately although we do that, we still fail miserably at times to live according to those truths. But nevertheless our failure does not demission this truth, Jesus is the Son of God, nor does our failure discount all the other truths. These men heard his testimony concerning himself and as we will see and already know, it was for the purpose of accusing him of heresy and the need to be put to death. They were so ingrained in their own religious ritualistic practices they could not tolerate to have it disrupted by the truth. Jesus knew this, because he told them they would not believe him. He also told them that even though they would kill him, he would be sitting at the right hand of the mighty God. Of course he did not say they would kill him, but he knew that was their intent, and that it was also the Fathers intent. One of the lessons we can learn here is that we should not be so ingrained in any religious ritualistic practice that it blinds us from seeing the truth. This includes denominational bias, as well as the routines of church life. The patterns we fall into of so many songs, a special, offering, public or corporate prayer, the message, with a closing song and dismissal seems to be the pattern, the routine, the rut of most services. Some worship might be a little more, depending on the demonstrativeness of the worship leader, some might be nothing more the entertainment by either a grand choir and orchestra or a small band of worship singers with specials that might be nothing more than entertainment that requires applause. There is little time for God to be involved, and if he would break through, he would not be accepted in many churches. If we are willing accept this style of doing church, are we any different then these men who desired to do away with Jesus because he was disrupting their way of religion? Are we failing to see the truth about Jesus as those men did? He came to set us free from our sin, our own self-absorbed life. He came to set us free from the guilt and shame of sin. He came to give us the freedom to worship him in spirit and in truth. Have we forgotten what that looks like and fallen prey to rituals instead? It seems so many churches are just filled with the living dead. Have we become like that too? What should we do? Where do we return to that worship in spirit and in truth? Where do we find those who will believe what Jesus actually said? He is the Son of God. He is the I AM, What we do with that defines who we are.