All of God

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

ALL OF GOD

Luke 3:19-22

19 But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of Herodias, his brother's wife, and all the other evil things he had done,  20 Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison. 21 When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."

NIV

We do not know why Luke records this out of sequence, for it would not have been possible for John to baptize Jesus if Herod locked up John. The record of Matthew shows Jesus being Baptized by John in chapter three, but not until chapter fourteen does Matthew’s record indicate the end of John’s ministry by being beheaded by Herod. So here, it is a little out of place, but Luke wants to show what happened to John so he can move on to the gospel about Jesus. What is so astonishing about the baptism of Jesus is that all three of the persons of God are present at one time in that same place. Although the Holy Spirit descended like a dove, does not mean he appeared as a dove. This translation follows the Greek fairly well, however, in the Greek, it is phrased as “ The ghost holy descended in bodily form in the same manner as a dove” which implies the Holy Ghost was in a physical form, and He did come down from heaven in a physical form, but not the form of a dove, but his descend was that like a dove lands, soft, flowing and slowly, unlike other birds descend. Why is this important, and what does it mean in our lives? First, we are shown once again, that God is three in one, but at the same time, no one can tell us what God the Father or God the Holy Spirit looks like, as well as no one has given us a physical description of the appearance of Jesus. We know Moses met with God and when he did, his face shown so brightly he had to put a veil to cover the glory of God when he came out and was among the people until the glory faded. However, we have unveiled faces and are to reflect the glory of God in ever-increasing Glory. Jesus did say that if we have seen Him, we have seen the Father. But we have not physically seen Jesus, still we have seen Jesus through His character and how He demonstrated how to live through all He did. In addition, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us. The Holy Spirit has descended upon us in the manner of a dove, gently filling us with the presence of God. We have all three persons of God active in our lives.  Jesus is always interceding for us before the Father who always hears our prayers, and the Spirit constantly guides us as to how to pray, and even prays through us when we cannot express the words. We live because and for all of God.