Today and Tomorrow

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

TODAY AND TOMORROW

Luke 13:31-33

31 At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, "Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you." 32 He replied, "Go tell that fox, 'I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.' 33 In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day — for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!

NIV

We know these are prophetic words of Jesus for He is headed to Jerusalem to do that which He was ultimately sent to do, or perhaps we should say that is what He came to do. However, there is a truth here we need to apply to our lives. When Jesus was telling the Pharisees that he would drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow and on the third day he would reach his goal, we see that Jesus would not give up working for the kingdom of God until his last breath. In fact, even on the cross, his goal, he was still teaching and showing that he was the Messiah. It is also interesting that some Pharisees came to warn Jesus that Herod wanted to kill him, is it they just wanted him to leave and somewhere else, getting rid of him and his gathering followers away from their authority over the people.

Nevertheless, what we see here that applies to us is that we should be doing the work of the Lord until we reach our goal, which would be eternal life. That would mean we cannot ever stop doing the business of God, striving for the kingdom of God, keeping going, and never giving up, even if someone wants to kill us. This brings us to think that the devil does want to kill us, however, not in the physical sense of death, although that is his ultimate goal that we experience eternal death in his realm. But, he wants to kill our ministry, our labor for the kingdom of God. He wants us to sit back in our old age and do nothing for the kingdom. He wants us to just be a couch potato, so to speak, just waiting to die, giving in to our aging bodies with their aches and pains, living a tired old life, living retired from being a part of the body of Christ, doing that which God has tasked us to do until he comes for us. Then we will reach our goal, in the heavenly realms with Jesus on that last day or our last breath. Until then we will continue today and tomorrow.