Restored Completely

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

RESTORED COMPLETELY

Luke 6:6-11

6 On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shriveled. 7 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. 8 But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, "Get up and stand in front of everyone." So he got up and stood there. 9 Then Jesus said to them, "I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?"  10 He looked around at them all, and then said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He did so, and his hand was completely restored. 11 But they were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.

NIV

What is amazing here, is there seems to be no doubt in the mind of the Pharisees that Jesus has the power to heal. It wasn’t a question whether he would heal this man, but if he would do it on a Sabbath day. Evidently healing was considered work, which was considered unlawful on the Sabbath. Jesus, on the other hand posed the question to them about which is better, to do good or evil on the Sabbath. This was one of those damned if you answer good, and damned if you answer evil questions. It simply did not matter how they answered they would be either giving him their approval to heal this man, or they would be admitting they approved of evil doing on the Sabbath. We have to notice they had no answer at all, knowing Jesus had caught them red handed so to speak. Of course this narrative also does not record that Jesus told the man, “I will heal you” Or “Your hand is healed” He simply told the man to stretch out his hand and it was normal when he did. It is implied, of course, that Jesus did in fact heal the man’s hand, and in doing so absolutely infuriated the Pharisees. Why are they so entrenched in a law that prohibits doing good on a Sabbath? Was that God’s intent? Surely it was not, but man has always, and will continue to add his own beliefs to the word and will of God. This is also showing us how they their perceived authority over the people was being disrupted by Jesus and this was the real point of their anger and frustration with him, which lead them to kill him. This was the will of God, of course, the killing of Jesus, for the redemption of mankind. God used the evil hearts of self-proclaimed righteous men. Jesus was pointing this fact out to them right there in their self-righteousness, that their hearts were in fact evil. We need to be aware of not getting trapped by self-righteousness all the while having thoughts that are not pleasing to God. How can we escape those thoughts? Are they evil if no deed accompanies them?  How some believers say they do not sin, in thought, word or deed is beyond actual reality, in fact in saying so, they have sinned in thought and word, lying both to God and themselves. Yet how are we to deal with our thoughts? How can we be perfect in thought all the time? It seems this is more the point Jesus was making rather than about doing good or evil on the Sabbath. The fact is they were doing evil in condemning Jesus doing the good. It is always right to do good, and always wrong to do evil, no matter what day it is. So this was more about seeing into our own hearts and applying the blood of Jesus to any evil that is present in our thoughts, words or deeds. This is about stretching out our life before Jesus and allowing him to restore it completely. 

Rush to Judgment

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

RUSH TO JUDGMENT

Luke 6:1-5

6:1 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. 2 Some of the Pharisees asked, "Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?" 3 Jesus answered them, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions."  5 Then Jesus said to them, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." 

NIV

Although the timing of this moment happened on a Sabbath, which so many scholars have focused their attention on which Sabbath it was, the first of the second, or the second of the first and how that related to certain feasts and whatever, of course based on a translation which may or may not have words which are not included in the original Greek text, they have lost sight of the truth which is the purpose of this narrative. There is no doubt it was a Sabbath and the Pharisees felt compelled to complain about the disciples of Jesus picking some grain to eat as they walked through the field. It was not about the property of the grain, but they were working on a Sabbath. It does seem odd that some Pharisees were following Jesus and his disciples through fields on a Sabbath day, when they should be in church or at least at rest, honoring the Sabbath. But instead they were working, judging the actions of others instead of themselves. It is historically recorded the Pharisees did eat rather large on the Sabbath, big prepared feasts, yet they judged men who merely ate out of necessity. A few kernels of grain, certainly nothing like the delicacies eaten by the Pharisees. How quickly we are ready to judge the actions of others all the while excusing our own. As far as Jesus being the Lord of the Sabbath, his disciples may not understood that either, but we, because of the scriptures do. The Pharisees certainly did not accept that statement, but nevertheless it is the truth. Jesus also reminded them about David, one of their beloved kings, the one in fact the Christ would come through. Perhaps this is why Jesus used David as an example of eating on the Sabbath, even that which was consecrated to God. But the truth here, as we have already stated, is about being so quick to judge and overlook our own offenses against God. Certainly the Pharisees had many offenses, although because of their self-righteous attitude, could not or would not admit any to anyone, must less themselves, yet they were looking for opportunity to judge. Had they been in church or at least at home with family being respectful of the Sabbath, they would not have seen the actions of the disciples. But there they were looking for and taking every opportunity to judge and to do so on the Sabbath. Was it lawful to judge on the Sabbath? It is lawful under the old covenant or the new, to judge at all? We know the answer and in both cases it is; no. Judge and be judged. With the same measure we judge we will be judged. It always comes down to the simple question, who is judging who? It is bad enough to judge one another, but to go out of our way to find faults in others, so we can judge them seems even worse. The only result in judging others is to feed our own self-righteousness. It would be to our advantage not to rush to judgment. 

The Old and the New

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

THE OLD AND THE NEW

Luke 5:36-39

36 He told them this parable: "No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.'" 

NIV

Perhaps we should have included the first response about fasting and the bridegroom, yet that is rather self-defining about Jesus being there and then not and when he is gone it is time enough to be sad, yet why sad as he will be at the right hand of the Father ever making intercession for us. In addition if he did not go, then the Holy Spirit would not be sent. Nevertheless let us examine these other two illustrations of Jesus. All three of them deal with the law which the Pharisees abide to religiously, or as the point Jesus is making, the old doctrine of the Law and his new doctrine. You cannot mix the new with the old and that is it in a nutshell. We cannot apply Jesus to the old way of thinking. When we encounter Jesus, we cannot simply apply him to our way of life, we have to apply him to a new life. That is why we are told that the old is gone and all things become new, we are a new creation in Christ. We are new wineskins. If we try to fit Jesus into our old life, continuing to live as we always have, then we will not survive, we will burst open, tear apart. The same goes with the patch from a new garment, Jesus being that patch, he simply does not match our old way of life, and if we try to use him as a patch on our old way, trying to keep that old garment, it will be torn by the new patch when washed. The fact is we have to put all the old way of thinking out of our mind, and think as a child of God should think. All that we once believed was the way to think is old and useless when we accept Jesus into our life. We can apply the principle, that truth to every aspect of life. What we think about life and death, heaven and hell, morality, material gain, security, along with so much more. All the old must be left old and everything must be new in order to apply Jesus. It is that simple. Yet Jesus is making a point that once we live the way we want to live, most of us prefer to stay that way, because we do not want to change, to become new. We want to retain the old ways and simply say we are Christians. Can we really do that? Jesus says, not a chance, we have to think according to his new way. We have to think the impossible. We have to rid the old and be the new. 

Invite

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

INVITE

Luke 5:27-35

27 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. "Follow me," Jesus said to him, 28 and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. 29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. 30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" 31 Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."  33 They said to him, "John's disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking." 34 Jesus answered, "Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? 35 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast." 

NIV

Although we have so many truths within this narrative we simply cannot parcel it as each parcel would be incomplete without the whole. First we should deal with once again someone encountering Jesus by his telling them to follow him. Why Luke prefers to call him Levi when Matthew calls himself Matthew. But nevertheless it was the man we know as Matthew who in fact wrote another gospel. We know of the dislike for the tax collectors as they were working for Rome and it was customarily thought these men collected more than Rome demanded thus keeping the balance, their ill-gotten gain, for themselves becoming rather wealthy on the backs of their fellow Jews. Yet when Jesus speaks to him only to say, Follow me, he gets up and does so, leaving everything behind. We need to know that word Follow is not just follow, as we follow another car down the road, but it carries the meaning of accompany me, be a follower of me, be my disciple. This then is an offer to become a disciple of someone who heals people, teaches great truths about the kingdom of God and does all with incredible authority. Why would anyone refuse to accompany him? What magical attraction does the ‘everything’ hold over people, they would not leave it to follow Jesus? Levi, or Matthew was so excited about his encounter with Jesus he held a great feast in his honor, inviting all his friends, specifically the other tax collectors, as well as some others who are nameless for this narrative. What we are to garner out of this is when we encounter Jesus we should be so grateful, so overjoyed that Jesus has called us to follow  him to accompany him, to be his disciple, that we invite the people we so closely associate with to meet him and dine with him, to hear him speak truths about the kingdom of God, to touch their lives the way he has ours. We will get to the conversation between Jesus and the complainers later, but let us remain focused on this truth about inviting those who we know to meet him. It is unlikely as long as we only associate with other believers, we will not be having any banquets for those who need to meet Jesus. Sometimes it seems we have isolated ourselves from them, at least in our own self-righteousness. We call us saved and them unsaved. We call us saints them sinners. We call ourselves church goers, them the unchurched. We say we are Spirit-filled and they are controlled by the evil one, or at least by their own carnal nature. We find every way we can to divide ourselves from their way of life, rather than inviting them to a banquet with Jesus. Matthew was so excited he could not contain this wonderful thing that had happened to his life, he had to have his friends know about it. Maybe we have just run out of unsaved friends to invite, so all we can do it hang out with other believers. Maybe we should be making new friends, even other dreaded tax collectors, those not highly thought of by the righteous. Maybe it is time to invite. Maybe we get too focused on our own lives we forget to see the needs of others, or why the Lord has us where he does, so we can invite someone to the banquet. 

The Authority

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

THE AUTHORITY

Luke 5:17-26

17 One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick. 18 Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. 19 When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus. 20 When Jesus saw their faith, he said, "Friend, your sins are forgiven."  21 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, "Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?" 22 Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, "Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? 23 Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'? 24 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. . . ." He said to the paralyzed man, "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home."  25 Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. 26 Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, "We have seen remarkable things today."

NIV

Several truths that we should learn here, which we surely already know, but it is good to remind ourselves. First we see the effort friends took in order to get this man in front of Jesus. Preachers have used this to illustrate how we should behave toward others in that we should go out of our way to help others find Jesus. We also are abundantly aware that Jesus forgives sins, as we are recipients of such forgiveness. Yet there are times when we feel a sense of guilt or shame for our behaver. This guilt and shame do not come from Jesus, but either from the devil or a close friend or relative. The devil will always try to get us to feel guilty thus proving Jesus has not forgiven us, because he does not have the power to do so, because if he did we would not feel so guilty. The devil would also have us believe, if he has the power, which he does, that he would not forgive us of such sin. The friend or relative is the other source of guilt or shame as they stand, either in judgment, or tell us we have offended or hurt them and should be ashamed of our behavior, or what we said, that we are not acting like much like a Christian. This is something we should never do as well. There is therefore no condemnation in Christ Jesus. Jesus does not condemn, he forgives. Why should we condemn or allow ourselves to be condemned either from the devil or any man, or woman for that matter. The other truth which seems to be another reason we are being told this of this event, this day in the life of Jesus, is the fact there were a whole lot of Pharisees and teachers of the law listening to Jesus. There came from every village of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem. That is really a lot of them. Why so many, why that day? Jesus being in a house, there must have only been enough room for all those Pharisees and teachers of the law. There could not have been room for the normal people that is why the roof entrance of the man on the mat. Here we see men so entrenched in the law, listening to Jesus, presumably to find fault in his teaching. There will always be people so rigid about certain aspects of Christianity they will not see the truth right before their eyes. We have to make sure we are not like them, but remain always open to the truth about our lives, and make those changes needed. The truth we are told here is a simply one, Jesus has both the power and authority to forgive our sin and to heal us. We simply only need to believe, and not allow the devil or anyone else to convince us otherwise. He has the authority.

Alone

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

ALONE

Luke 5:15-16

15 Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

NIV

Even though he had told the leper to not say anything but go show himself to the priest, which we understand under the law, was to make sacrifice, wash, sacrifice, wash, wait and then the priest would announce him clean. The leper must have told people, as well as it may have been possible someone saw Jesus heal that leper. This of course would have really caused a stir, as leprosy was an awful thing which caused people to have to leave home, leave society as it were and generally become homeless, living outside the city. Yet people came flocking to Jesus with all sorts of illnesses and infirmities and it is implied he healed them all. Luke does not tell us that, nor does he say anything about whether Jesus taught them as well, but we must assume Jesus took every opportunity to teach people about the kingdom of God, even as he healed people. What Luke does tell us that Jesus was so overwhelmed with people, with teaching, with healing, all day and possibly into the night, and the next day that he also needed time alone to pray. This is the lesson for us. Although we can gather together to worship our Lord, and we can join together for prayer as we are told that when two of us on earth agree on one thing it will be done for us, and that when two or more are gathered in his name he will be among us. Yet there is also this truth that we need solitary time along with God in prayer. This is our personal time of refreshment. Gathering together to worship or pray may bring results from God, or even encouragement from the other believers, but we need that alone time. These are the times we hear from God. These are the times we can discuss our most intimate things with him. This is when we are strengthened, when we are truly encouraged. This is when we are given the direction of our lives. Yes, God can intervene in the most crowded of situations, but that alone time is quiet time, time we can pray, talk and most of all listen to God. These are the times he can speak truth into our hearts and minds. Our attention, our focus is completely on him, not being distracted by others, by their voices, their words, their appearance, their worship and prayers. This alone time is the only time others are not seeking our attention, as they did of Jesus, always looking for us to pay attention to them, respond, agree with them, pray for them, heal them in a sense. If Jesus needed time to withdraw to a lonely place then all the more we do. We need time to be alone with God.

"I am willing"

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

“I AM WILLING”

Luke 5:12-14

12 While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." 13 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" And immediately the leprosy left him. 14 Then Jesus ordered him, "Don't tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them." 

NIV

The very first thing that jumps out at us are the words of Jesus saying, “I am willing”. How great are those words. As we examine the narrative here we have to also see that he tells the healed man to go to the priest, not stopping along the way to tell everyone. What Jesus was doing here is following the law given in Leviticus as to the rules and regulations concerning the ceremonial cleansing before a person with leprosy or any skin disease could reenter the camp and return to social life. The Priest would announce or proclaim the person healed, or whole, or course after a whole lot of sacrifice, shaving of hair, washing, sacrifice, more shaving, days waiting, washing and then finally proclaimed clean. Jesus wanted the priest to proclaim this leper clean as a testimony to the people, so the cleansing was true, and the man could return to social life, his family and friends. But again we really need to see, on a daily basis the words of Jesus, “I am willing”. Have we ever seen anywhere in the whole of scripture that refutes those words? Have we ever seen anywhere in scripture where Jesus says he is not willing, or there is some reason I am not willing?  As long as we cannot find anywhere that he says he is not willing for whatever reason, we have to accept the fact Jesus is always willing. So then why are we sick? Why do we have aches and pains? Why do we live with any infirmity? Do we accept them as being the will of God? Do we believe we have some illness or infirmity for the reason of learning some lesson from God? It almost seems like some Christians enjoy talking about their aches and pains. In fact it seems like we try to outdo each other with our confessions or maybe even bragging about how many aches and pains we have. “Oh that’s nothing, I have” seems to be more of the conversation then reminding ourselves, that Jesus is willing. Do we justify not being healed? How can we? What could we say? “I didn’t ask”. “I don’t really believe”. So how do we deal with having an infirmity, or aches and pains? Maybe it is just us old people, but no, the young ones have the same situations. If Jesus is willing then why don’t we ask him as the leper did? He stated that Jesus could make him clean, if he was willing. The leper had the faith that Jesus had the power to heal him, if he was willing. Jesus put to rest his concern about his being willing and then proceeded to heal him. Jesus can put our concerns to rest also, but we must first truly believe he has the power, then simply ask. No fear, no doubt, no second thoughts, just believe he has the power and he is willing.