Rejoice or Woe

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

REJOICE OR WOE

Luke 6:23-26

23 "Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets. 24 "But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. 25 Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. 26 Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.

NIV

Here is the whole of the truth. Although we can parse each of the individual aspects, poor, hungry, weep and hated, and as we can see the opposites, rich, well fed, laugh, and well loved, the truth is actually in the comparisons. Jesus is making the point there is a difference between the life of a believer and that of an unbeliever. As we looked act all the aspects of the believer which is focused on Jesus, and that in doing so our reward is heaven, eternal life and that is cause enough to rejoice and leap for joy, we also see what happens to those who focus on self, woe. The opposite of heaven is woe. It surely would seem the right course of action is to look to Jesus. Who in their right mind would choose woe? Yet it appears some would rather focus on being rich, well fed, and self-comforting, laugh at their sin, and seek the praise of men. Jesus says all of that is their only reward and when their life is finished, woe. He makes is very clear that we believers should not get distracted by all that and put ourselves in jeopardy by becoming just as the unbeliever in our seeking after those things. We have been told to seek first his kingdom and righteousness and he will provide for us that which we need. Be the believer and receive his reward, or be like the unbeliever and get his woe. The choice is clear. But we still have all the temptations to want all the stuff, to be rich, to eat well, to enjoy life, and have people like us. Can we have a little of both worlds? Certainly some people do speak well of us, even unbelievers. Some churches focus on doing so much in the community the unbelieving community will speak well of the church, and maybe just maybe, some of them might visit the church. But if we were to tell them they are sinners who are condemning themselves to hell, they may not speak so well of us. So where is the line? How far do we become like them in hopes they will see Jesus? If we try too hard, we might forget our own focus and begin to see things as the world does, looking for riches, great food, nice clothes, new homes and cars, accepting of our failures, our sins, without remorse, thinking we have none, and enjoying the praise of men. What is our goal? This life or the one which follows? If we say we what to be more like Jesus, then we should start being more like Jesus, telling people the truth, the difference between being able to rejoice or getting the woe. 

Hated and Blessed

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

HATED AND BLESSED

Luke 6:22

22 Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.

NIV

It does seem rather odd to be hated because we are disciples of Jesus in today’s world, but in fact it may be truer than we realize. During the early church, those who were disciples of Jesus were in fact thought of as men of sedition. They were considered as men who stirred up trouble among the Jews. Paul was accused of that very thing. James tells the believers that it is the rich who drag them into courts, the rich who slander the name of who those disciples belong to. The name Christian or Nazarene were names of reproof, not of noble ideals. Today is a little different in that we are considered by some as a Christian nation, but that is not really the way it is. We may have started out that way, but that is not how we are now. Those of us who are believers have been set aside from society in some sense. Men want laws to prohibit symbols of Christianity from the public square. Others use the name of Jesus Christ but give him a middle initial with no respect for him at all. If we say too much about Jesus or our faith, we might find ourselves being shunned by many. Others think we are foolish to believe, that their concepts of the world are far better than ours. If we look around we can see many ways in which men hate us, exclude us and insult us because we belong to Jesus. Being a born again believer in Jesus Christ is not the normal lifestyle of the average American, we are in fact a very small group in the whole of society. There may be many who think themselves as Christians, but still think otherwise about us who are born again. That is fine, we cannot bend to the thinking of the average American, or for that manner the average so called Christian. We must remain true to Jesus, to the truth of the word of God. If we do not allow the thinking of the world to infiltrate our thoughts, Jesus tells us we will be blessed. 

Weeping and Laughing

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

WEEPING AND LAUGHING

Luke 6:20-22

20 Looking at his disciples, he said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22 Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.

NIV

As we now examine being blessed because we weep for we will laugh, we cannot help to compare that in some sense to being poor in Spirit and having the kingdom. Although that deals with the spiritual aspect of life, this weeping seems to deal with more of the intellectual aspect of life. When we take the time to consider life itself, and it’s temporal state which concludes with death, if we have no hope of eternal life, the hereafter, we should in fact weep, mourn or lament, for there then is no purpose for our life at all, other than to simply try to satisfy our own desires for a brief moment. But if we do in fact lament over the fact we are lost, then we will, not spiritually at first, but intellectually decide to follow Jesus and we will laugh, or as Matthew says, be comforted. Someone who is dead in their sin, dead in their spirit cannot make a spiritual choice but they must see the end of their life intellectually and understand it ends with nothing, this should cause anyone to mourn, to weep, to lament. How good does life get when we come to that realization? We can laugh, we are comforted by the fact Jesus will come back for us and take us to where he is. Life just doesn’t get any better than that. Knowing this and combining this fact with all the rest of scripture, especially about not worrying about this life, what we will wear, eat, or whatever, we can have a whole different perspective on all the happenings within our daily life. Once we were weeping over life, but that was before meeting Jesus, now being comforted. What can life bring us that will stop us from this comfort? Nothing! What can life do to destroy our laughter? Nothing!  Some may remember a saying about the wealthy, laughter all the way to the bank, but we can laugh all the way to heaven. 

Hunger and Satisfied

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

HUNGER AND SATISFIED

Luke 6:20-22

20 Looking at his disciples, he said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22 Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.

NIV

Having looked at the poor we now turn our attention to the hungry. Once again Matthews’s record of these words include righteousness. That is those who hunger after righteousness will be filled. Luke leaves what it is we should hunger for to our imaginations except Jesus was in fact speaking about himself. The crowds were hungry for his words, his healing, his power, as they followed after him with such veracity. A person who is at the brink of starvation will hunt down food with that same mindset. These people had been spiritually at the brink of starvation under the authoritative administration of the law by the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the teachers of the law, so when Jesus came along with his love, compassionate healing and his power and authority with which he spoke, they were being spiritually satisfied, filled. Some of us today could be in the same situation which those people were. We could be in church, but yet starving to death spiritually, remaining in hunger for what Jesus has for us, love, compassionate healing and power, not to mention his righteousness. If we hunger for Jesus, we will find all of him. But if we hunger after the things of the world we will remain at the brink of starvation. If we feed on the world, we might be fat, but we will still be starving. We need to hunger after Jesus and if we do that we will never go hungry, for we will be satisfied.   

Poor and Happy

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

POOR AND HAPPY ABOUT IT

Luke 6:20-22

20 Looking at his disciples, he said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22 Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.

NIV

Although this is the same account that of Matthews which we refer to as the Beatitudes the word order and usage in the Greek text is a little different. Matthew records that Jesus said, “Poor in Spirit” and in the Greek text Luke does not include the word, spirit. Is this important? Did Jesus mean the poor in spirit, or just the poor? Is there any significance why Luke leaves this word out of his account? Perhaps we might be making more of this then should be. The point is that it does not matter the amount of material wealth a man has, either the abundance or the lack of it entirely. This word poor certainly carries the meaning of a beggar, one who has absolutely nothing and is public in the square totally dependent on the gifts of others. Here is where spiritual pride must be, in the public square, being seen as a beggar, completely dependent on the gift of God for eternal life. There is not one ounce of any spiritual wealth which will gain the kingdom of God. When we are not poor in spirit, poor spiritually, that in itself implies we think we have some spiritual wealth, which would prohibit our having the kingdom of God. Can we have great spiritual knowledge and still be poor? Is there a difference between being poor in spirit, totally dependent of the gift of God, and being spiritually enlightened? If we understand there is no deeds, no good works, which qualify us for the kingdom, we can have knowledge of the scriptures, have insights in them in order to see the truths for our life. But in that we also know, without any reservation that our only hope, our only source of salvation is Jesus, that our spirit is bankrupt, we have nothing by which we can gain the kingdom. This is the first lesson, all others from here on are dependent on us learning this. Poverty in our spirit, nothing but a beggar seeking the free gift of God. Never having anything is also the truth here. Jesus did not say that we would be happy because our being poor would be rewarded with wealth. That we would become wealthy in spirit, but only that we would be happy because we are gaining the kingdom. This word blessed does in fact mean happy. So no matter what life brings our way, if we know that we are beggars, understanding all we need is Jesus, we will be happy because at the end of this life, we will be in the kingdom of God. It is when we get distracted by the good works, the list of do’s and don’ts of denominational doctrines, or the emphasis on being a good Christian, we may not be blessed or happy. We get so focused on our failure to fulfill all those expectations, either by the church, or ourselves there is no source of happiness in our spirit. We become burdened, weighted down with so much a load which we cannot carry, and any sense of happy escapes us. But when we know there is nothing we can do, or not do that makes us rich in spirit, then we can realize we are truly poor and then we can be happy.  So we can be poor and happy about it. 

See the Power

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

SEE THE POWER

Luke 6:17-19

17 He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, 18 who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by evil spirits were cured, 19 and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.

NIV

We are about to get into a whole of what Jesus told his disciples at this meeting of this large crowd of them as well as this great number of people from all over. From this description we gather there was a whole number, perhaps hundreds, or thousands of people. It is impossible to actually know just how many, but the fact is they all were trying to get close enough to Jesus to touch him because power was coming from him. We cannot be sure what exactly that looked like, but it must of have some physical appearance, or at least there was physical evidence of this power coming from him. It is difficult to image that Jesus prayed for each of these people who were healed. That would have taken days, or weeks and maybe even months, if the crowd was as large as it is described. There was simply power flowing from him and as many as there was who needed to be healed were. It was not his fine word filled prayers, but his power that was healing them. Perhaps we can take a clue from this when it comes to our prayers for the sick, or for healing, or for that matter anything. Perhaps all we need is to be near him and allow his power to flow through us. Oh sure we can impress all the people with waxing on in prayer, giving either mini sermons or life lessons to those in need of his power, but maybe we just need to allow his power to flow. Do we think because the scripture says that the prayer of a righteous man avails much that we need to pray as though we are trying to prove how righteous we are? Would it not be more effective if we just allowed his power to flow through us so people would be healed? How many words does it take to see his healing power, or does it just require faith? There is power in the name of Jesus! All we need is the name of Jesus! Now maybe some of the people need words, because that is how we all were raised, hearing prayers filled with words, but if they saw the power of the name of Jesus at work, no words would be needed, and all of them would be healed. We all need the power flowing from him. We need to see the power. 

Betrayal

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

BETRAYAL

Luke 6:12-16

12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. 13 When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: 14 Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, 15 Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, 16 Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

NIV

From here we have to notice as Jesus had been walking around, and when he told Simon to follow him and he would make him a fisher of men, which was not the time Simon became an apostle. It is apparent there were many who Jesus called to follow him, and there were many who became his disciples, but only twelve were designated as apostles. Is there anything we can apply to our lives from this historic account of Jesus choosing the twelve? For one thing we know, as Jesus knew the hearts of all men, he knew the heart of Judas Iscariot before he chose him. We have already seen Jesus saying things to the Pharisees because he knew what they were thinking, so it was with Judas. Although it is somewhat different, in the sense Judas became a traitor. This might indicate at the time of his choosing his heart was not bent on betraying Jesus, yet Jesus had to also know that he would and still, because that was the plan, chose him. Yet within the heart of all men exists the ability to betray Jesus. Maybe that is the lesson we should learn. We have the ability within us to betray Jesus, even though he has called us to himself, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Judas had to believe in Jesus. He was one of them, in fact chosen to be designated an apostle out of all the other disciples. Was it just because he would betray Jesus? When we answered the call of the Holy Spirit to follow Jesus surely we did not do so with the intent of ever betraying him, yet once deciding to follow Jesus, when we act out of our own self-serving motives have we already betrayed our Lord? That Greek word, traitor, carries the meaning of giving over to another’s (the enemies) hand, a surrender. So it is when we surrender our will to the temptations of either our own evil desires, or of the devil. When we give over those truths we hold so dear, to the desires of self, are we not betraying our own self, and therefore Jesus? So let us not think too poorly of Judas, as he shows us that which can exist within our own heart. Let us pray we have the strength to overcome any moments of betrayal.