Category Archives: Luke

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Something To Ponder

Reflect:
Luke 2:1-40

“But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.” ~Luke 2:19

“Mary pondered these things in her heart.” That statement has always intrigued me, and I am not exactly sure what it means. It is stated again at the end of the chapter in Luke 2:51 as the author gives us a glimpse into the life of Jesus as a growing boy at about the age of 12.

We don’t know a great deal about Jesus’ early life beyond what we read here, but to say the least, it must have been quite interesting for Mary to be the mother of God. I think it is safe to say that, on the one hand, Jesus was like any other baby who needed to be changed, cried when he was hungry, developed a cute little personality as the months passed by, and became an inquisitive little boy.

On the other hand, he was the Son of God. Angels attended his birth, shepherds came to worship him, wise men from afar brought him expensive gifts, prophets prophesied over him during the customary temple ceremonies, and he carried on a spirited dialogue with the intelligentsia of his day during a family visit to the temple.

I am sure that most mothers and fathers would have bragged incessantly and shamelessly to the neighbors about their son’s many outstanding qualities and unusual experiences. But not Mary; she simply treasured all these things that were said about Jesus and all the things that Jesus did as he grew, and pondered them in her heart. In other words, she gave them a lot of thought; she kept them between herself and her Lord.

That is not such not a bad idea, wouldn’t you say? We probably ought to do that a lot more often. Rather than blurting out everything that happens to you or that happens in you, perhaps you ought to just meditate on those experiences and keep them between the Lord and you.

When someone comes to you with a “word from the Lord”; when you have a dream that seems to have an unusual spiritual dimension to it; when you have an extraordinary encounter with God, and you are not quite sure how to respond to these experiences, why not just treasure them and ponder them in your heart. Keep them between you and your Lord and just watch over time to see how God uses them.

I have a feeling that this, in part, is how we grow deeper in our spiritual lives. Likewise, I would not be too surprised to find out that when we give in to our need to blurt out all of these holy things to anyone within earshot, we have spent the entire capital of that experience, and it will go no further than that.

Some of the things that may happen in your life this week will be of a truly rich nature. Ask God for the wisdom to discern if that experience is of the kind that should simply be treasured and pondered in your heart.

“How pleasant, how delightful, to sit alone and in silence, to converse with God, and so to enjoy the only chief good, in whom all good things are found!” ~Thomas A. Kempis

Reflect and Apply: Ask the Lord to teach you to understand the difference between the things that need to be shared and those experiences that are so rich that they are meant only to be shared between you and the Lord.

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God Never Forgets

Reflect:
Luke 1:1-80

“Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied: ‘Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people.’” ~Luke 1:67-68

Over the years the church has given Zechariah’s song the title, “The Benedictus,” or “The Blessing.” The lyrics of this brief song, which we read in Luke1:67-79, were sung by one of the proudest and oldest first time fathers of all time. But more than being just a happy little diddy from a happy old daddy, Zechariah verbalizes two timeless and timely truths about God’s character that you and I probably need to hear again today.

First, we are reminded that God never breaks a promise! John’s birth was living proof of God’s faithfulness. In His song, Zechariah belts out to all who will listen, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people.” (Luke 1:68)

God keeps his promises—every one of them. He can’t help himself; it is just his nature. He had promised through the prophets a redeemer for Israel hundreds of year before, and 400 silent years had passed since the last prophet Malachi had uttered the oracles of God until the time the angel Gabriel revealed God’s plan to Zechariah. Though God’s promise had been ever so slow in coming, it was nonetheless fulfilled.

Zechariah’s song reminds us that even though God may be slow, he is never late!

Second, God never forgets. “Zechariah’s” name meant “God remembers.” And in his song Zechariah exploded with the joyful realization that God does remember: “God has remembered his oath…” (Luke 1:72-73)

Zechariah must have been discouraged. He was a priest of a nation that had turned its back on God. He and Elizabeth, whose name meant “the promise of God,” had been faithful to God all their lives—they lived up to the meaning of their names. Yet God had not blessed them with a son, and wayward Israel continued to be oppressed by its pagan enemies.

But Zechariah clung to this truth: Our Creator remembers! God knows who we are, where we are and what we need. He remembers us. He remembers his promises, and God graciously acts at the proper time.

Isaiah 49:15-16 reminds us, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.”

God can’t forget!

If you are reading these words today and feeling a little forgotten by God, thank God you’re wrong! Zechariah reminds you from first hand experience through his song that God remembers you and will fulfill every single one of his promises to you at the proper time!

So be faithful!

“God often gives in one brief moment that which He has for a long time denied.” ~Thomas A` Kempis

Reflect and Apply: Take a moment to thank the Lord for his unfailing faithfulness. He remembers his promises to you and he will fulfill them all. Rejoice in him today, then offer your life faithfully back to him and his purposes.

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Sleep In Heavenly Peace!

Today’s Reflection:

“The angel said to the shepherds, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”  (Luke 2:10-11)

It was the Sunday before Christmas, and a little brother and sister were in church singing a Christmas hymn with the congregation. And as the song finished, the boy belted out rather loudly, “sleep in heavenly beans.” His sister gave him the most righteously indignant stare she could muster, and in a not-too-soft whisper said, “It’s not ‘heavenly beans’. It’s ‘sleep in heavenly peas.’”

As you know, they both butchered the words of the most well-loved Christmas hymn of all time. What you may not know is that back in 1818 that hymn was born. The birthplace was St. Nicholas Church in a small Austrian alpine village where a 31-year-old church organist by the name of Franz Gruber composed a melody on his guitar because the church organ was broken. The melody was for a poem that had been written earlier by the 26-year-old pastor of that church, Joseph Mohr. The poem was entitled, “Stille Nacht”, and the melody quickly formed in Gruber’s mind.

On that evening, in time for Midnight Mass, the world’s most famous Christmas Carol was heard for the very first time. It’s the same song that by tradition believers still sing every year during the season of Advent. It’s the song, “Silent Night.”

Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon Virgin,
Mother and Child
Holy Infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Now I don’t want to spoil your Thomas Kincade image of “Silent Night”, but I’m not too sure how “calm” and “bright” the night of Christ’s birth was. The Bible tells us that Mary’s pregnancy had been suspect in the eyes of her village from the beginning. She had been unmarried when the news arrived that she’d be pregnant with the Messiah by the power of the Holy Spirit. Not too many of the townsfolk had bought that story, and she likely became the object of their cruel and incessant gossip.

Then when the time came for the baby’s birth, Mary and Joseph had been required to travel by foot the arduous journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, not an easy trip for anyone in those days, especially for a woman in the late stages of pregnancy. When they arrived, they were forced to stay in a stable because the inn had no room. And there among the squalor of the smelly, noisy animals, alone, with no family to rejoice with her, no mid-wife to assist her, a teenage virgin girl gave birth to the king of the world. And if Jesus was like most infants, like my two daughters when they were born, there was anything but peace and quiet that night.

Yet in the simple, humble, unlikely birth of Jesus, something Divine, something Eternal was released on Planet Earth. As someone has pointed out, the best Christmas present ever was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in the manger. Franz Gruber truly did capture that indescribable, priceless gift with the words, “heavenly peace.” That night, God invaded earth, and heavenly peace was left in the wake of the Divine invasion. The angels who announced the Christ’s birth to the nearby shepherds couldn’t have put it any better,

Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth, peace on whom his favor rest.

The infant Jesus may not have slept in heavenly peace that night, Mary and Joseph may not have enjoyed a peaceful night’s rest either, but God’s peace invaded earth that night in Bethlehem, and you and I on this Christmas Day are its beneficiaries.

So let me ask you a very important question: Are you benefiting from God’s peace? Is the peace of God, as Paul called it in Philippians 4, “guarding your heart and mind in Christ Jesus”? Is the peace of Christ, as Colossians 3 describes, “ruling in your heart”?

Perhaps the peace that passes all understanding is the last thing characterizing your life today. Maybe worry, anxiety, fear and stress dominate your world at the moment. My friend, God wants you to have his heavenly peace. That is his gift, wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger, and the gift is just for you!

Now God’s peace is neither a blanket guarantee of global harmony nor a promise that your life will be conflict-free. It is just simply saying that if you are in God’s favor, which comes by virtue of accepting his Son as your Lord and Savior, his peace will guard your mind, it will rule your heart, and it will sustain your life.

The “heavenly peace” that Gruber wrote about and the angels announced is God’s gift to you this Christmas, even if your world seems a long way from being peaceful. It is simply the peace that comes from knowing that in the birth of Christ, eternity irrevocably invaded time and God drew near to you and me through Jesus Christ, our Immanuel.

That’s the heavenly peace God wants you to have on this very day, and every day for the rest of your life.

And if you have received him by faith, you can sleep in heavenly peace.

Something To Think About:
“It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.” ~Charles Dickens

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Living Proof

Read: Luke 24

As they talked and discussed these things, Jesus himself suddenly came and began walking with them. (Luke 24:15, NLT)

A lot of people say, “I believe in Jesus. I think he was a great teacher…in fact I’d say he was God’s Son.  But I’m not too sure about this resurrection thing…I mean really, it’s kind of unbelievable. It’s probably just a myth, anyway.”

According to a recent poll, 85% of Americans claim Christianity as their personal faith, yet of those, an astonishing 35% believe that though crucified, Jesus never had a physical resurrection. No resurrection! The Risen Lord is the heart and soul of Christianity. The Apostle Paul said Jesus rising from the tomb on the third day isn’t just a creative little addendum to the Easter story, it is central and essential to authentic faith.  He pointed out if Christians are not going to stake their lives and their eternal future on the reality of the resurrection, then they are wasting their time being Christian.

Large numbers of people are fascinated with Jesus; they respect him; they even love him in a way. Yet they are uncomfortable with the resurrection and uncertain that it really happened. However, buried deep within their hearts is a longing for the resurrection to be true. They need Jesus’ resurrection to be real—even if human logic has buried the possibility of someone rising from death—because they, too, hope for resurrection when they reach the end of their lives.

They are no different, really, than the people in first century Palestine who had placed their hopes in Jesus.  They, too, had bought into his proclamation of eternal life, only to have their hopes dashed when Jesus was crucified on the cross and buried forever in a cold, hopeless garden tomb.

Or so they thought!  Stories began to immediately circulate that Jesus had risen from the dead.  At first his followers didn’t believe it—who in his right mind would?—until Jesus himself began to appear to them, offering not just hearsay evidence, but irrefutable evidence that he was alive—living proof. That’s right, Jesus himself showed up and blew the doors of disbelief right off their jailhouse of doubt, forever freeing them to the settled truth that he was alive and that resurrection was now the new end of life order for all who placed their faith in him.

Jesus himself showed up! (Luke 24:15, 36) In the accounts of five different New Testament writers, the Risen Christ made thirteen separate appearances to a total of 557 witnesses—people who saw Jesus alive with their own eyes.  At the time Paul wrote his piece about the resurrection, some thirty or so years later, he pointed out that most of those 500 plus eye-witnesses were still alive, so all any skeptic had to do was just go ask one of them for their personal account. (I Corinthians 15:6)

Acts 1:3 says, “During the forty days after his crucifixion, Jesus appeared to these people many times with convincing proofs that he was actually alive.” Jesus himself showed up.  He wanted people to know that he was alive—that resurrection was the new order of the day.

When you consider the historical, physical, visual and the transformational proof of the resurrection—verifiable evidence—you are forced to decide about Jesus:  He is either Lord of all or he is not Lord at all. He is either the risen Christ or he was an incredible liar.  Either Christianity is based on truth that you should order your life by or it needs to be discarded as unreliable and swept forever into the dustbin of history.

The evidence says the resurrection is reliable fact; we can be confident in that. Jesus especially wants you to be convinced!

“For a mere legend about Christ…to have gained circulation and to have had the impact it had [in the 1st century], without one shred of basis in fact, is incredible.” ~William F. Albright

What If God Took Over?

Do you find yourself wanting to believe in the resurrection, but still having your doubts? Bring your doubts to Jesus and pray this simple prayer found in Mark 9:24,  “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!”

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Submission

Read: Luke 23

Then Jesus shouted, “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!” And with those words he breathed his last. (Luke 23:46, NLT)

Submission is not a very appealing word in our culture, but it is critical to the Kingdom life, growing and producing God-pleasing fruit in us. Submission is not weakness, it is acceptance of the will of God for our lives, and our joyful surrender to it.  Submission is an active faith in God’s plan and a ruthless trust in his character, especially when things are unpleasant for us.  Submission says, as Jesus prayed, “Father, not my will but your will be done.”

Submission shapes everything about the Christian life: How we respond to our circumstances, how we regard others, how we regulate our emotions, and how we relate to the eternal world.  More than anything, godly submission produces confidence that God knows what he is doing with our lives, which in turn, produces even greater surrender.

Submission also releases God’s favor in our lives. Just look at Jesus, the most powerful, yet most submissive man who ever lived. Of all the qualities that endeared him both to the Father and to those of us who have entrusted our eternal salvation to him, it was his joyful surrender to the mission of God that stand above all others.  In particular, notice how his submission to God’s plan in the face of death released the Father’s high favor to him:

“Jesus humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names.” (Philippians 2: 8-9)

“Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.” (Hebrews 12:2)

Is there anything that moves both the heart and the hand of the Father more than our submission to the divine mission, especially when it requires surrender to the unpleasant providence of God? Is there anything that better demonstrates tough-minded but tender-hearted trust that God knows what he is doing than submission to his plan? Is there any greater joy, tranquility or stability than knowing and trusting that because of the Fathers’ competent care, this world is a perfectly safe and satisfying place—even when it doesn’t look like it?  Is there any prayer more God-honoring than to pray, as Jesus did,  “Not my will but your will be done…into your hands I commend my spirit?” (Luke 22:42, 23:46)

No—there is none!

“Just as a servant knows that he must first obey his master in all things, so the surrender to an implicit and unquestionable obedience must become the essential characteristic of our lives.” ~Andrew Murray

What If God Took Over?

Surrender and submission to the will of God is not always, perhaps not usually, an easily thing.  Where do you need to submit to the Father’s will today?  As you think about that, remember the words so movingly expressed by the old hymn,

My times are in thy hand:
Why should I fear?
My Father’s hand will never cause
His child a needless tear.

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Weekend Meditation: That’s Quite A Prayer Team You’ve Got

Read: Luke 21-22

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.”  (Luke 22:31-32, NLT)

There is a lot of prayer going up for you!  I hope that comforts you, because whether you realize it or not, you’ve got quite a prayer team.  Think about this: When you pray, it’s not just you praying.  Romans 8:26-27: 26 says,

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”

That is tremendous news! Paul says the Holy Spirit is actively engaged, at this moment, interceding within you and through you, lifting your life, taking your case, speaking your name before the throne of the Heavenly Father and praying the Father’s perfect will for your life.  As the great theologian C.H. Dodd so appropriately noted, “Prayer is the divine in us appealing to the Divine above us.”

Even when you don’t know what to pray for, or how to pray, or stumble through prayer, or even shortsightedly pray things that would be to your harm, the Holy Spirit comes alongside you to translate your prayer into the world’s greatest prayer, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Through the Spirit, “our prayers,” as C.S. Lewis said, “are really His prayers; He speaks to himself through us.” As frustrated and inept as you might be, when you pray, you unleash a divine dialogue between Father and Spirit. When you pray, Father and Spirit are strategizing how to turn the circumstances of your life, both good and bad, into that which will produce the greatest good in you.  That’s why there’s no such thing for a child of God as ineffective prayer.

Now as amazing as that is, there’s more. Not only are Father and Spirit in a constant conversation about you, the Son is in on the discussion as well.  Romans 8:34 says, “Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.” Compare that to Hebrews 7:24-25, “Because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.”

Jesus’ job description as resurrected Lord is to be your personal intercessor. We saw that with Peter here in Luke 22, but it didn’t stop with Peter.  Now Jesus stands night and day before Father representing your case, too. And he intends not just to help you get through whatever you’ re going through, his mission is to save you completely!

What all of this means is that Father, Son and Spirit are actively engaged on your behalf at this very moment, and they won’t stop until they see that the Father’s perfect plan is fully worked out in you both in time and for all eternity.

And when you join them, that’s quite a prayer team you’ve got, isn’t it?

“When Jesus intercedes for us, the Father always hears him; the Father always responds immediately to bring to pass what the Son has requested. He is our advocate with the Father.” ~Henry Blackaby

What If God Took Over?

No matter how confident you are with your prayers, offer them up to God. After all, you’ve got quite a prayer team praying with you!

 

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Beating Death To Death

Read: Luke 20

“And they will never die again. In this respect they will be like angels. They are children of God and children of the resurrection.” (Luke 20:36, NLT)

So far, the death rate is hovering around 100%, but there is a day coming when death will be beaten to death.  Jesus said it, and proved he had the authority to promise it by rising from death’s grip.  Death is the last of God’s enemies—and ours—to be done away with, but that day will come when the children of the resurrection are no longer required to feel its sting:

And I saw a great white throne and the one sitting on it. The earth and sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide. I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. The sea gave up its dead, and death and the grave gave up their dead. And all were judged according to their deeds. Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death. And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:11-15, NLT)

Did you catch that?  “Death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire” from which there is no escape.  At long last, that which sin conceived in the Garden of Eden is forever buried at the Great White Throne judgment, and the children of God are finally and fully free to enjoy life unending—a return to the original plan of God before the fall of man.  There will never again be a mournful tear shed or a restless night of worry over sickness unto death or a bedside vigil or a funeral service:

I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” (Revelation 21:3-4, NLT)

Wishful thinking?  Pie-in-the-sky preaching?  The opiate of hope?  Not a chance.  This is bedrock theology, promised by the Resurrection and the Life himself:

“Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.” And he also said, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.” (Revelation 20:5-7)

That day is coming, friend, perhaps sooner rather than later, when death will be beaten to death.  And since you’re a child of God—and of the resurrection—you have a lot to be happy about today!

“They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies.” ~William Penn

What If God Took Over?

Memorize and meditate on John 11:25-26,

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”