Monthly Archives: February 2020

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – ARE YOU LISTENING?

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ARE YOU LISTENING?

“Salt is excellent. But if the salt goes flat, it’s useless, good for nothing.

Are you listening, really listening?” Luke 14:34.

Apart from its preserving and flavouring function, salt plays another important role in the rituals of Jewish religious life. The salt ceremony is part of a Jewish wedding. Bride and groom each bring a small amount of salt which is poured into a bag and shaken together. These words are spoken as the salt is shaken, ‘What God has joined together let no man separate,’ symbolising the unbreakable union between husband and wife.

Perhaps Jesus was referring to both of these functions when He mentioned salt in His teaching. In the context of what He was talking about, an ‘unsalty’ disciple is one who started out with Jesus, found the going difficult and pulled out after a while because he had not really taken time to count the cost. He lost his flavour and became unprofitable in the kingdom of God.

But what about the union that had been forged between him and Jesus, as binding and unbreakable as a marriage covenant? Perhaps this is the heart of the issue Jesus is talking about here. Divorce may dissolve a marriage legally but it never obliterates the union of two people, contracted by their vows and consummated by their physical union.

In the same way, when a person becomes espoused to Jesus through a faith-union that is consummated by the power of the Holy Spirit, he enters into an unbreakable covenant with Him, sealed by His blood shed on the cross. To renounce that covenant and to break that union is to become as worthless as unsalty salt.

The writer to the Hebrews recognises how futile such a life becomes. “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance because, to their loss, they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to public disgrace.” Hebrews 6:4-6 (NIV).

And so Jesus pleads, ‘Are you listening, really listening?’

How easy it is to ‘sign on’ when the preacher paints a rosy picture of ‘sins forgiven and a free passage to heaven’ but neglects to tell the whole story. There is an attitude that pervades both the world and the church – ‘no fear of God,’ said the Apostle Paul. How seriously do we take Jesus’ words? Isn’t that the essence of fearing God?

God is invisible but real. His presence fills both heaven and earth. He is here, now, always, but how seriously do we take Him and what He has written? The Jews of Jesus’ day chose to ignore His words and found, to their terrible loss, that He was right and they were wrong. In AD 70, Jerusalem was overrun by the Romans, reduced to rubble and burnt to the ground because they chose not to listen.

And so Jesus says to you and to me, ‘Are you listening, really listening?’  It pays to listen. If Jesus was wrong, we lose nothing. If He was right, we lose everything. If He was right about His own death and resurrection, is there any reason to doubt Him when He warns us that we cannot be His disciple on our own terms?

But the alternative is unthinkable. Not to follow Jesus is to consign ourselves to the eternal trash heap because ‘He who has the Son had life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.’ 1 John 5:12 (NIV). Bottom line!

But the choice is still yours!

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE -KISS YOUR PLANS GOODBYE

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KISS YOUR PLANS GOODBYE

“Or can you imagine a king going into battle against another king without first deciding whether it is possible with his ten thousand troops to face the twenty thousand troops of the other? And if he decides he can’t, won’t he send an emissary and work out a truce? Simply put, if you’re not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it good bye, you can’t be my disciple.” Luke 14:31-33.

That’s how radical the loyalty is that Jesus demands of His disciples. There is no other spiritual leader on earth that requires a commitment as close as that. Why is discipleship of Jesus so all-or-nothing? Why can’t it be simple adherence to a belief system like Buddhism, or sticking to rules and rituals like Islam?

It’s the difference between following a religion and being personally united to a person. Jesus does not call people to believe what He taught (and He did that), as much as He invites us to believe who He is. That makes all the difference in the world. If He is not who He is, then everything He taught is empty, hollow and meaningless babble.

Counting the cost of radical discipleship is a necessary prerequisite. The image of warfare is appropriate because Jesus came to earth to take back what rightfully belongs to Him – the right to rule over His own creation. Satan is the usurper who won the allegiance of God’s son, Adam, and the entire human race by deception. Jesus unmasked and evicted the squatter and his hoards of demons by defeating them through the cross. His call to discipleship is a call to all-out war. There is no place for slackers or deserters because anything less than a total sell-out to Him would mean disaster.

This sounds like a no-win situation for those who take Jesus seriously, but the opposite is true. It’s our plans and our self-will that ruin our lives and take us off course and away from what God intended for us in the beginning. When we heed His call to become fused to Him, submitting ourselves to His plans and His will and obeying His words, we enter a realm of living that is secure and restful and has a guaranteed destination because we are on the way to eternal life in the presence of the Father.

What does that mean? It means that we no longer have to take responsibility for ourselves. He has set the course and He promises all the resources we need to follow Him and to get where He is taking us. The most comforting of all is that He accompanies us, or rather, leads us every step of the way. It is not for nothing that He is called Immanuel – God with us. He promised, “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you,’ Hebrews 13:5 (NIV), and ‘And surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age,’ Matthew 28:20b (NIV).

What more can we desire? Yes, kiss goodbye to our plans, but it is no loss because our plans are selfish, open-ended and are not guaranteed to succeed. God’s plans are perfect, sure, energised by His power and part of a much bigger picture which He put in place before the foundation of the world. ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV).

When we entrust ourselves and our lives into the hands of Jesus, we place ourselves and our destiny into the safest hands in the universe. Not only are His plans good and sure but they are directed by one who loves us perfectly, passionately, and unconditionally and we can relax and follow Him with perfect confidence.  It takes all the sweat and uncertainty out of living since we have now given Him the driver’s seat of our lives and we can enjoy the ride!

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – IT WILLCOST

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IT WILL COST

“Is there anyone here who, planning to build a new house, doesn’t first sit down and figure the cost so you’ll know if you can complete it? If you only get the foundation laid and then run out of money, you’re going to look pretty foolish. Everyone passing by will poke fun at you: ‘He started something he couldn’t finish.'” Luke 14:28-30.

Jesus says a lot and reveals a lot about Himself and being His disciple in this statement. Unlike His arch enemy, there’s no fine print in His invitation to follow Him. Satan carefully conceals the cost of believing his lies in a sugar-coated pill that kills as surely as swallowing a cyanide capsule. Not so Jesus! He leaves no-one with illusions about the cost of following Him.

‘Before you make any commitment to me,’ He says,’ be sure you understand what is involved and what it will cost you. Don’t wait to find out when you have already been joined to me because the separation is painful and permanent if you decide to pull out.’ Isn’t that just like Jesus? He doesn’t lure us into commitment to Him under false pretenses and then reveal the conditions after we have believed Him and been born into His kingdom.

Being a disciple isn’t a bed of roses. There is a cost involved, not money or good works but nothing less than dying. It’s not the dying so much that is the problem but what has to die – our right to the ownership of our own lives inherited from our forefather, Adam. He rejected God’s right to make the rules and chose to make his own and, in that choice, he wrote his own obituary. He died to God, to eternal life and to all the wonder of a life lived in union with and directed by a loving heavenly Father. Satan neglected to tell him what rebellion would cost!

Jesus urges, ‘Before you blindly plunge into a commitment to discipleship, be sure you understand what it involves. Then, when tough times come and the requirement to submit and obey your Rabbi eat into your will, your sense of ‘fairness’, your idea of God’s love, what you think is best for you, how you treat other people, how you wear Jesus’ yoke, how you handle the stewardship of your money and possessions and all the myriad ways you consciously or unconsciously reveal who you really are, you won’t chicken out because you didn’t know what to expect.’

Being a disciple of Jesus requires a daily dying to yourself. Jesus called it ‘shouldering your cross.’ Your cross is not some difficult or painful circumstance you have to bear over which you have no control, like an impossible spouse, a wayward child or a physical infirmity. Shouldering your cross is purely voluntary. Jesus did not have to go to the cross but He chose to. He had every opportunity to evade His persecutors and escape their murderous intentions, He could have saved Himself but He didn’t.

Not only that but He absorbed in Himself all the injustice, venom and cruelty that human beings could dump on Him without revenge or retaliation. That is the majesty of Jesus’ sacrifice. He could have died cursing and swearing just like the criminals who died beside Him, but He did not. “He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth.” Isaiah 53:7b (NIV).

But…what we pay for, we receive. The price we pay, dying to ourselves, will receive something far greater in return. That’s how it is with God. What we pay in surrender, we receive in the fullness of God’s life and all the blessings that go with it, freedom from guilt and fear, His love, His joy and His peace. These are priceless compared with the unwillingness to allow Him to steer us through the allurements or sin which conceal the terrible price of death.

The choice is yours….

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – CASUAL OR COMMITTED?

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CASUAL OR COMMITTED?

“One day when large groups of people were walking along with Him, Jesus turned and told them, ‘Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters – yes, even his own self – can’t be my disciple. Anyone who won’t shoulder his own cross and follow behind me can’t be my disciple.'” Luke 14:25-27.

What is Jesus demanding? It sounds as though He is bent on breaking up families, almost as though He is on an ego trip. Is this really His intention? Once again, as we peer into the issues of the kingdom, like peering into a rock pool, we see things in the depths which are obscured in a casual glimpse.

What is discipleship? Unlike other religions that demand adherence to rules or rituals, to be a disciple of Jesus means to be reconnected and fused to Him who is the source of life. Jesus never demands an allegiance to Him that makes us losers. His promise is that our commitment to Him means that we will never be diminished.

So what does He mean? Discipleship is much more than answering an altar call or signing a decision card. It is not a free ticket to heaven, leaving us to carry on with our own lives with the guarantee of eternal life when we die because we carry our ‘passport’ in our back pocket. So much of what is preached as the ‘gospel’ today is a distortion of the truth. Jesus did not come and die to save us from hell and take us to heaven.

That may be true if we understand the concepts correctly. Yes, He did come and die to rescue us from hell, but the hell He talked about was not the hell of eternal fire but the hell of a wasted life that completely misses the point of our existence; God created us to glorify Him by being mirrors of Himself so that the whole of the created order can ‘see’ the glory of God in our attitudes and behaviour.

Jesus came to show us the Father and to remove the barriers that separate us from Him so that we can enjoy His fellowship and favour all the days of our lives. In that intimate connection with Him, we grow to be like Him and reflect Him in our daily journey through life.

Jesus promised to take us to the Father, but that demands submission and obedience to Him as Lord. It demands a revised attitude towards those who are closest to us and even towards ourselves because we have become espoused to a new lover. We do not lose our connection with family and friends – we redefine it. Our obligation to them and to ourselves changes. They are no longer our first consideration – Jesus is – and He determines the way we relate to them.

For example, husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. Now that’s a radically different way from the way that husbands usually treat their wives. That does not mean renouncing them; it means loving the way Jesus loves, bringing them nearer to the model Jesus shows by the way He treats us who are His bride.

When we recognise the beauty of this new way of life, drawing our life’s energy and direction from Him, we also realise that, instead of renouncing our earthly relationships, we redefine and purify them from selfishness to loving service in the pattern and power of our Master. But this can only happen as we let go of the old ways of relating to them and strengthen our allegiance to Jesus as our Lord and then learn to imitate Him in the ways He related to people.

Jesus’ intention is to change society by changing people, and that only comes as we renounce our old selfish ways and live in intimate and uncluttered connection with Jesus, our source because He insisted, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” John 15:6 (NIV).

But it’s your choice…

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – EATING DINNER IN GOD’S KINGDOM

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EATING DINNER IN GOD’S KINGDOM

“That triggered a response from one of the guests. ‘How fortunate the one who gets to eat dinner in God’s kingdom!’ …’Whoever you find, drag them in. I want my house full! Let me tell you, not one of those originally invited is going to get so much as a bite at my dinner party.'” Luke 14:15-24.

There’s a sting in the tale (!) of Jesus’ response to the comment made by the dinner guest. He never allowed the erroneous thought to pass that God makes arbitrary decisions for people, bypassing their freedom to choose and their responsibility for making the right choices,

God’s kingdom has been flung wide open to all people, but there are still rules by which people gain entrance. This man (the one who made the comment) was more than likely a Jew, traditionally a member of God’s chosen people. Jesus forcefully drew his attention to the history of his people. In spite of God’s goodness to them, they ignored His invitation to a life of blessing and prosperity by doing life His way. The ‘dinner table’ had been set and laden with the bounty of His love and favour, but it required ‘coming to the party’ by being obedient to His commands.

God has not prepared His banquet for nothing. There is more than enough for everyone but He will not force anyone to accept His invitation and neither will He waste His grace on those who think their way is better. ‘Go out,’ He instructs His servants, ‘and find those who are willing to come in. I must have my house full of guests.’

Those who are decent and properly dressed but refuse the invitation will be left out and those who are ‘misfits, homeless and wretched’ will be welcomed to the banqueting table simply because they accepted the invitation. God is not concerned about the condition of their lives. He can take care of that. His forgiveness is sufficient to clean up their past and give them a new start as long as they accept His offer.

It was imperative for the man to understand that membership of God’s chosen people did not automatically give him entrance into the kingdom of God. That required a personal response to God’s invitation. Once again, unlike man-made religion that does not understand the inborn freedom and responsibility to choose, God does not intrude into the non-negotiable gift of free will.

Jesus made it clear to Nicodemus, a teacher of Israel and one who should have understood the nature of God’s kingdom, that no-one can ‘see’ or ‘enter’ the kingdom of God without a radical, Spirit-energised ‘new birth’ into the realm of God’s rule (John 3). This is God’s powerful response to the simple decision of any person, regardless of his present state of heart or behaviour, to recognise who is in charge, submit to His authority and surrender the right to direct the course of his own life.

Entering God’s kingdom involves a change of destiny (from hell to heaven), a change of direction (from self to God), a change of master (from Satan to Jesus), and a transformed disposition, (from selfish greed to selfless service), and it all happens through the power of the Holy Spirit at work in those who make the simple decision to believe what God says and accept His invitation to ‘eat at His table.’

Strange how the ‘table’ of the world has nothing to offer but misery, loss and futility and yet people continue to choose it in place of the limitless bounty of God’s love, forgiveness and blessing. You can have either but

The choice is yours…