Monthly Archives: December 2019

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – WHEN YOU PRAY, SAY…

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WHEN YOU PRAY, SAY…

Then He said to them, “When you pray, say, ‘Father, hallowed be your name; your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.'” Luke 11:2-4.

I wonder how well the disciples understood what Jesus was teaching them about prayer. Did they grasp the underlying truth of God as their Father?

Unlike Matthew 6, there is no preamble to this version of the prayer. Although Jesus taught them that prayer is not about words, words are used to express the thoughts and emotions of the heart. What a world of meaning is wrapped up in the word ‘Father’! There is no prayer outside of this relationship which was made possible through Jesus.

“Yet to all who received Him, to all who believed in His name, He gave the right to be called children of God…” John 1:12.

Prayer is the way sons communicate with their heavenly Father. Prayer is the conscious turning of the attention away from self to the One who is our source and sustainer, changing the focus of our attention from self and our issues to God and His attributes. Whatever words it might take to do this, they are only the vehicle through which this change of awareness happens. Therefore, when a son focuses his attention on Father God, he is praying.

This Father with whom human beings are privileged to have a relationship because of Jesus, is not outside our realm of existence and experience. Heaven is not a place up there or out there but a dimension that completely saturates the physical realm as air saturates the earth. God is everywhere and He is therefore as near to us as our breath.

Prayer is therefore, firstly, a change from my environment to the environment of God, of His presence and nearness. Secondly, it is an awareness of who He is. To hallow His name is to concentrate on His glory, “the sum of His magnificent attributes and the eternal fame of His mysterious works”.  Where my attention was taken up by the issues of my life, I deliberately change my focus to the greatness of the God with whom I am engaging in love and trust as a son.

To engage with Him in this way is to put my personal concerns into the context of the bigger picture of His kingdom and will. It is also to put my failures into the context of His mercy. Since He has dealt with my load of guilt and the barrier of sin that separated me from Him, I dare not hang onto the offences that separate me from my fellow man.

Just as I am dependent upon Him for every crumb that passes my lips as a little child, I too, I depend on Him for the “bread” of heaven that nourishes my soul. And, knowing how tainted I am with the self-centred greed that has infiltrated my soul from birth, I look to Him to save me from my self-destructive ways that would ensnare and destroy me without the grace of His Spirit who is constantly at work in me.

This simple pattern prayer teaches me the essence of the attitude and disposition of a son to the Father, submitting to Him and being involved in the things that are on His heart. This is not about putting God first. This is about putting Him in the centre of my thinking and living.

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY

“One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When He finished, one of His disciples said, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’” Luke 11:1.

This was a strange request unless something significant lay behind it. What was it about the prayers of Jesus that caught the attention of His disciples? They were Jews who had been taught to pray the Jewish way from their mother’s knees. There were prayers they prayed every day and there were prayers they prayed on every occasion. What’s more, their prayers were ‘Bible’ prayers, making them more powerful than spontaneous prayers. They were praying God’s Word which meant that they were praying God’s will.

But there was something different about Jesus’ prayers. Did they link His prayer life and His public life, His powerful ministry and His miracles to the relationship He expressed with the Father through His prayers? How much of His praying did they actually hear? Sometimes Jesus prayed one-sentence prayers out loud as in, for example, His prayer in John 12:27, 28, and the Father responded audibly.

Jesus answered them by teaching them a model prayer which enshrines all the principles of New Testament praying. In it He was taking them into a realm of prayer which was foreign to them because it opened to them the same privileged position of sonship which He enjoyed and which He had come to reveal in His incarnation.

Was this what they saw and wanted? There is no evidence that this moment added anything to them before His death and resurrection since they were the same quarrelling, competitive and failing bunch that denied and abandoned Him in His hour of need. Nowhere in the gospels do I read of any of them engaging in prayer as He did.

It would take the life-changing event of His death and resurrection to move them from being spectators to becoming sons and learning that the same source of power was available to them through the Holy Spirit who had come to live in them at Pentecost, as He had promised.s

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – IT ALL DEPENDS ON ATTITUDE

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IT ALL DEPENDS ON ATTITUDE

“As they continued their travel, Jesus entered a village. A woman by the name of Martha welcomed Him and made Him feel quite at home. She had a sister, Mary, who sat before the Master, hanging on every word He said. But Martha was pulled away by all she had to do in the kitchen. Later, she stepped in, interrupting them, ‘Master, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to lend a hand.’

“The Master said, ‘Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary had chosen it – it’s the main course and won’t be taken from her.'” Luke 10.38-42.

How many sermons have you heard on this story!? Martha, the busy one; Mary, the “spiritual” one, or something like that!

But let’s look at it from a slightly different perspective. Martha was working hard to prepare a meal for her guests – highly commendable because they had to eat. Mary was sitting in the living room among the men, listening to Jesus – also highly commendable because she was fascinated and enthralled by this man. Which of them was in the wrong, Martha because she should also have been listening to Jesus, or Mary because she should have been helping Martha prepare the meal?

We are looking at two different people with two different perspectives, values and gifts. Martha was obviously a task-orientated person while Mary was more contemplative and less practically-minded. Did Jesus rebuke Martha for working in the kitchen instead of being with Him? Did He commend Mary for choosing to abandon her sister to sit and listen to Him? It almost sounds like it, doesn’t it? But it would be out of character with Jesus to play one person against another.

I want to suggest that there was something deeper than that. Had I been Martha, and had I thought that Jesus was putting me down for wanting to do my best for Him, I would have been upset and offended with Him. But that was not His intention.

Obviously Martha derived her pleasure from serving. It was her spiritual gift, if you like. But she was fed up with Mary for not doing with her what brought her satisfaction. She wanted Mary to be like her and to do what she did. Had Martha done her work in the kitchen with as much joy as Mary had by listening to Jesus, she would have been worshipping just as much as Mary was.

Was Jesus saying that what Martha was doing was less important than what Mary was doing? It almost seems like it but that would contradict what Scripture teaches. “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31 (NIV). That’s pretty ordinary, isn’t it? What about this one? “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord and not for human masters.” Colossians 3:23 (NIV).

It was not what Martha was doing that was wrong; it was her attitude that spoiled what she was doing. We also struggle with this problem – we either become resentful of people when they don’t help us with what we are doing “for the Lord” or we want to do what we are not gifted to do because there’s more limelight and more accolades that accompany someone else’s gift.

Was Jesus saying that Mary had the right attitude and therefore she gained the most benefit by doing what she was fitted to do? You see, it’s all about relationships and preserving unity. Martha could have, with a generous heart, allowed Mary the freedom to be with Jesus without resentment and gained as much blessing in her serving as Mary did in her listening.

There are three values that we, as children of God in the family of God must make priorities if we are to represent God’s kingdom to a fallen world; we must protect love, preserve unity and promote contentment, at all costs and all the time.

It’s what Jesus did. Shouldn’t we?

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – NEIGHBOURS

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NEIGHBOURS

“Looking for a loophole, he asked, ‘And just how would you define “neighbour”?’

“Jesus answered by telling a story, ‘There was once a man travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half dead. Luckily a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.

“A Samaritan travelling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill – I’ll pay you on my way back.’

“‘What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbour to the man attacked by robbers?’

“‘The one who treated him kindly,’ the religion scholar responded. Jesus said, ‘Go and do the same.'” Luke 10:29-37.

This story speaks for itself – a straightforward answer to the religious boffin’s question. The more I read the gospels, the more I am struck by the fact that Jesus was not interested in theological debates. Time and again, when He was confronted with attacks from His religious opponents, His questions and stories always focussed on how people responded to those in need.

The parables He told were designed to make people think and to identify with some person or group in the story. In this case, the man who asked the question, in other words the man who made the Law the subject of study and discussion, would easily identify with the second man in the story, if he were honest, who walked away from the injured man without helping him.

The priest and the Levite had one of two choices – to help the injured man because he was in need or to walk away because they did not want to become “unclean” by touching a bleeding man. Both of them chose the “religious” route because they believed it was the right thing to do. They thought that it was more important to stay on the right side of God than to get their hands and clothes dirty by assisting the unfortunate traveller.

The religion scholar had just correctly answered his own question about what to do to have eternal life. Loving God and loving one’s neighbour is evidence of an inner attitude that cares more about doing right for those in need than doing “right” in a ritualistic sense for oneself. It’s not about how people get into trouble. It’s about helping them get out of it. That is a reflection of the way God treats us.

The Samaritan had no religious scruples about the man in need. He did not care that he was a despised Samaritan helping an injured Jew. He saw him as a human being who needed him. His compassion moved him to do something to rescue him.

Jesus turned the question around – not “Who is my neighbour?” but “To whom am I a neighbour?” I am a neighbour to anyone who needs me and anyone who needs me is my neighbour.

How does one go about “loving one’s neighbour”? Here is a simple definition: Love is meeting some else’s need at your own expense. The motivation is compassion, but how does one become compassionate if one feels nothing for the needy person?

The apostle Paul gives us a helpful and practical answer: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Colossians 3:12 (NIV). These qualities may not be a part of who you are but, Paul says, act as though they are and they will become a part of you.

It’s not how religious we are that will change the world. It’s how compassionate we are to our “neighbour” that will, in the end, make the real difference. Let’s just do it!

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – THE REAL TEST

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THE REAL TEST

“Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. ‘Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?’ He answered, ‘What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?’

“He said, ‘That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence — and that you love your neighbour as well as you do yourself.’

‘”Good answer!’ said Jesus. ‘Do it and you’ll live.'” Luke 10:25-28.

I think Jesus got it all wrong! Aren’t we supposed to accept Him as our personal Saviour and then we’ll go to heaven when we die?

But that’s not what the man asked Him, not what to do to get to heaven but what to do to inherit eternal life. But aren’t they the same thing? Apparently not, according to Jesus.

According to the Bible, whatever we would like to believe, the moment we are conceived, we have human life and that life will never end. We live the first phase of it on earth in an imperfect world and among imperfect people. We have been given free will as part of the package of being human and that means that we have choices to make and we have to take responsibility for our choices. Our choices also have consequences which affect our lives and the lives of the people we interact with every day.

Our natural bent is t,o do our own thing, to be greedy and selfish and to hate God because we fear the consequences of our rebellion. Why? Because Satan lied to the first pair and lured them into disobedience with false promises. Now we live in the shadow of Adam’s foolish choice!

But God didn’t create us to live like that. He created the universe, the earth and everything on it to live together in peace and harmony as a reflection of His nature. In order to fulfill His dream, He wanted us to choose to love Him and to obey Him because we love Him. But the devil had other ideas…and we live with the result.

But God was not put off. In fact He used these very circumstances to reveal one of the most beautiful aspects of His nature – what the Bible calls “what is heaviest in Him – His mercy.” Because of His mercy, He sent Jesus to show us what He is really like and to pay the debt of sin we owe Him. He took the punishment for our sin on Himself by sacrificing His life for us so that He could bring us back to the Father.

Because He has done away with the reason for our antagonism, God gives us the opportunity to return to Him and to submit ourselves to His authority. Amazingly, when we do that, He reciprocates by giving us His Holy Spirit to live in us. He replaces our old alienation with a new attitude and disposition.  Rebellion gone, we are now able to love Him and to express that love by the way we treat our fellow human beings.

This is what Jesus means by “life”, not endless physical existence but an exuberant life that embraces all people as family and cares more about them than about ourselves. In the environment of God, where nothing out of character with God can exist, everything that does not reflect Him gets pruned off. This is the process we go through as we serve out our apprenticeship in this life.

Eternal life does not begin when we die. It is God’s gift to those who choose to return to His original plan to have a family living together in harmony with Him and with one another in unselfish caring and generosity. This is the evidence that we are truly His family, living life His way here and now. Death is merely the completion of our apprenticeship and the beginning of participation with Him in His forever family in His presence.

Are you someone who had “accepted Jesus” and think you have eternal life or are you really living by loving Him and His children? That’s the real test!