Luke 6:27-36

Whether we acknowledge it or not,we r eternal beings!Whether we live like it or not,this life on earth that we live now is NOT all there is! There is MORE! MUCH MORE!Among other things that Jesus is talking about n Luke6:27-36,Jesus is calling us to living like we ARE ETERNAL!When we think about how we live,how we love,how we react to those around us,how we “invest” our lives & our resources....,we typically consider “what r the dividends for me” based on a perspective of our life in the here and now & our future life as we live out our days on earth.This paradigm will cause us to live n ways that r counter to what Jesus is calling us to n these verses,and ultimately take us away from what Jesus says n vs35,”But love ur enemies,& do good,& lend expecting nothing n return,& ur reward will b great,& u will b sons(&daughters)of the Most High,4 He is kind 2 the ungrateful & the evil.”4 each individual these Words of Jesus have specific purpose & meaning that address how The Lord is making us new from the inside.HE is changing those who belong to Him...from worldly people into His sons&daughters that realize the significance of being ETERNAL & knowing that HE is GOD/HE is our Father n Heaven!If we r going to live like Jesus is describing n these verses...,then we must have an ETERNAL PERSPECTIVE/PARADIGM for the way we live.If not,we may do these things that Jesus is calling us to...but w a begrudging attitude/heart about doing them...and the impact on our life is ultimately an embedded bitterness or even worse pride/self righteousness that begins to grow n us.N verse 34b-35 when Jesus says “for HE(The Lord)is kind2 the ungrateful & the evil.B merciful,even as ur Father is merciful.”,Jesus is giving us a perspective adjustment of sorts!We ourselves were once consider the ungrateful&evil...,only cleansed from these things by the Blood of Jesus when we turn to Him and away from our previous ways.SO!We r 2 b humbled by what Jesus says here,as well as dependent on His Mercies!We have no room for any pride nor arrogance!In fact we should realize the utter TRUTH of our dependence on The Lord 4 EVERYTHING!This is the PERSPECTIVE that Jesus is calling us to...that not only acknowledges our ETERNALITY,but indeed changes every one of our paradigms of thinking&living!Compelling us to live&love like Jesus!Only when we let go of our earthly/worldly paradigms of living,& live like we r ETERNAL & like we r DEPENDENT on The Lord for absolutely everything...only when these changes constantly occur n our hearts/minds/lives...r we truly “living like” we r His sons&daughters.Dear Jesus,I confess that this is not the way I think/respond/live/invest...most of the time n my life.Forgive me,& change me....by the power of Your Mercies&Graces that only You possess and only You have the authority to give...so that I will live/think/respond/invest as You call me to n these verses.

Luke 4:14-30

Doubt can become an intersection in our lives that turns us away from the Love & Concern that God has for us! OR,it can become the intersection at which we choose to TRUST&FOLLOW God in spite of doubt,& we find the miraculous ways that God reveals HIS Love and Care for us! N Luke4:14-30,Jesus reveals WHO HE is to the people n Nazareth.The people mumble their doubts amongst themselves.Jesus responds by telling the people of two others that had doubts,but responded anyway to what the Lord was calling them to do!Even though these two from 1Kings&2Kings initially had serious doubts,they decided to at least “try” what the Lord was suggesting through Elijah.They did not allow their doubts to over rule what they thought “may be from the Lord”,and they had miraculous experiences w The Lord!N our lives,Satan will throw all sorts of doubts at us and into our minds/hearts about the Lord& His Ways&His Word!Especially when the Lord has something significant that He is compelling us to do w/in our spirit&heart&mind.The crowd of religious folks Jesus is responding to n these verses of Luke decide that at the intersection of doubt they are not going to allow themselves to “try” learning more about Jesus,& instead seek to stone Jesus!They do end up seeing a miracle...the miracle of Jesus walking right through their crowd and leaving them to their “doubtful ways”!Sometimes...God will bring us to “intersections of doubt” for the very reason of revealing more of Himself/His Love/His Grace/His Ways to us.At these intersections,we will either have opportunities to see God reveal Himself to us n miraculous ways,or we will let doubts win over our minds/hearts/spirits.If we choose the latter,we will be left empty of what we need the most!We need Jesus to b with us!But as the religious folks n these verses chose to let doubt win,and Jesus walked through them & away....when we choose to let doubts win we will suffer the same emptiness!AND we will miss the miraculous ways that Jesus desires to reveal Himself/His Love/His Ways to us!We have the choice of responding one way or the other!Will we trust the ways of doubts...,or will we seek to tests doubts w faith n Jesus being able to  help us through doubts with His Wisdom&Discernment leading us to what He desires to show/teach us.Dear Lord,this convicts me of how much of my life I have allowed doubts to somehow win over my heart,mind,or spirit in 1 way or another.Forgive me! And from this point on,remind me of the significance that all the intersections of doubts may have n my life...and the message You have n these verses of Luke about intersections of doubt.Then by Your Power lead me through these intersections on the path of Trusting You!

Luke 3:23-38

Luke3:23-38 gives the lineage of Christ through his mother all the way back to Adam!(Everyone reading Luke’s letter at that time knew that when he wrote,”Joseph,son of Heli”, Luke was referring to Joseph being the son in law of Heli,who was Mary’s father).Matthew1:1-17 gives the lineage of Christ through his stepfather Joseph all the way back to Abraham - Matthew assumed everyone would already know the lineage of Abraham back to Adam!Both of these accounts testify to what the people at the time of Jesus KNEW as True History!Both indicate the TRUE knowledge that the people of the time had of history and the value placed on family lineages.Even the false prophet Mohammed felt the need to include Abraham in his false teachings,because of the historic significance of Abraham! But,Mohammed twists the truth about Abraham,which any person that sought Truth at that time would know!But many just chose to believe what they wanted to believe(something that FIT their FEELINGS & maybe also their PREJUDICES...or they were just “lazy thinkers”),instead of digging in to know The TRUTH!Those that seek to know TRUTH,will be “the diggers” that r described n Psalm2:1-4(“...if you accept my words & store up my commands w/in you,turning your ear to wisdom & applying your heart to understanding,& if you call out for insight & cry aloud for understanding,&if you look for it as for silver & search for it as for hidden treasure,then you will understand the fear(reverence/awesome respect)of the Lord).Unless our heart is soften by God’s cry for us to truly know His EXPRESSIONS of Love/Mercy/Grace for us,&we then respond n earnest to God’s cry to seek to truly know HIM-we run the risk of falling far short of knowing how AWESOME THE GLORY of GOD is,and never come near to having the reverence & respect that GOD’s Love/Mercy/Grace should have in our life.We will fall far short of being AWED by GOD;HIS POWER;HIS CREATIVITY;HIS DIVINITY;HIS WORD;and we will never know the depth&breadth of GOD’s LOVE expressed by&through JESUS!Moses has these things n his life for certain,when he fell to the ground in the presence of GOD.Today,we have had century’s of Satan seeking to dilute & contaminate what GOD has given us as an accurate account of HISTORY/TRUTH.We will either succumb to some of Satan’s tactics,or we will become like the one in Psalm2:1 that “accepts my words”(accepts what GOD says as TRUE),& then “search for it as hidden treasure”! When we do the latter,HE promises that we “will understand the fear(reverence/awesome respect) of the Lord & find the knowledge of God”.Dear Lord,my understandings of YOU and what CHRIST provides for me have been diluted & tainted by my accepting ideas/thoughts about YOU that veer away from TRUTH.Please inspire me to be a “digger” as described in Psalm2...so I will have the reverence for YOU & the knowledge of YOU that YOU promise for “diggers”.

Luke 3:7-14

N Luke 3:7-14 crowds come out to John the Baptist seeking to b saved from “the coming wrath”,seeking some religious answer....the right church to join...the right religion to become a part of...the right Sunday school...the right Bible Study..,etc.JTB tells the people that none of these THINGS r the answer they r looking for.The “answer” is a life that comes into awareness of The Truth of “the way of the Lord”(Luke3:4b)&what all mankind will see as “God’s salvation”(Luke3:6),& then values the significance of The Truth with a life that is changed(makes an about face from previous life paradigms to a new set of life paradigms)by The Truth!A life that “produces fruit n keeping” w the changes inspired/motivated by The Truth-“repentance”!We do get caught up n what Wes King,n one of his songs,called “holy huddles” and their religious stuff...,& forget about how the Gospel of Jesus and His Words should b influencing the way we walk through our daily lives,  & how we think&what we think,etc.This is what JTB is addressing n our lives!The need to b aware of how I am living;thinking;prioritizing;& what I am saying & how I am treating people around me!JTB is telling me that if I am spending daily time reading God’s Word & praying and seeking Him,yet do not have a life that is changes by these things...,that I am one of the “brood of vipers”(Luke3:7b).Dear Lord Jesus,forgive me for being one of the brood of vipers so much of my day!Please make me aware of these times & bring me to repentance quickly.May Your strength and Your Spirit help me to make these changes more and more readily throughout every day,so I may know what You provide as freedom from crooked paths and then living n the straight paths of following You(Luke4:b).

Luke 2

God reveals Himself through every aspect of Creation/every aspect of Life...every aspect of my life!(Psalm18:1-4,”The heavens declare the glory of God; The skies proclaim the work of his hands.Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.Their voice goes out into all the earth,their words to the ends of the world.”;Romans1:20,”For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities-His eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”).God takes the responsibility for revealing Himself and His Mercy & Grace to all people...every person ever born and yet to be born.God has created absolutely everything to reveal His Glory to us,& sovereignly leverages every moment of history to reveal Himself to us!He does ALL of THIS,& then leaves THE DECISION up to us-what we will do with the trails of evidence He puts n our life.The Lord even did this with Joseph & Mary,the earthly parents of Jesus!When Jesus is born a “great company of the heavenly hosts” appear to some shepherds to tell them about not only the birth of Jesus but also about WHO Jesus is!(Luke2:8-20).These shepherds find Jesus,& tell Mary& Joseph everything the heavenly hosts had told them about Jesus.Mary is overwhelmed with “everything” she hears,& knows that she needs to “treasure up all these things and ponders them in her heart”(Luke2:19).The awesome information shared w her about the baby Jesus by the shepherds is so overwhelming w things she probably cannot fathom yet as she is changing diapers and feeding the baby Jesus.But something in her realizes that she cannot let what she has heard slip from her life...so she “treasures them up”.This treasuring up must have been a fairly regular thing for Mary & Joseph.They bring Jesus to b circumcised...& Simeon unpacks what the Holy Spirit had shared with him about Jesus...Joseph & Mary “marvel at what was said about him”(marvel = to be filled with wonder, admiration, or astonishment, as at something surprising or extraordinary).Joseph & Mary realized the value of what they were told,but not yet the significance!Still,they captured these things n their hearts&minds...they treasured them up.At the end of Luke2,Jesus stays behind at the temple “in his Father’s house”.Joseph & Mary are surely n panic mode as they go back to find Jesus.When they find the boy Jesus,he says to them,”Why were you searching for me...Didn’t you know that I had to be in my Father’s house.”(Luke2:49).Joseph & Mary “did not yet understand what he was saying to them.”)Luke2:50.BUT! Mary “treasured all these things in her heart.”(Luke2:51).God created absolutely everything for the purpose of revealing Himself/His Glory to us,&has weaved His Mercy & Grace into every moment of history,while also revealing evil and its very nature.What we “do” with all of this information is up to us.Satan has a ploy to bend our minds & hearts away from TRUTH,because TRUTH of all things reveals God’s Glory/Grace/Mercy...and His Awesome Love to us.Satan will twist&bend TRUTH & the ways that God has personally intervened in our lives...,so we will utterly discount&deny the Love of God and His Mercy&Grace.This is why we must rightly treasure up God’s Word in our lives,& treasure up all He has done for us and shown to us personally!If not,we may never find the Overwhelming Awesome JOY of knowing WHO Jesus is,& WHAT he has done for us.Dear Lord Jesus,I have let so much of what you have done n my life and shown me personally,escape from my heart&mind.Please restore these into my life & make their significance have the impact in my life...so that I may know more fully Your love for me,& Your Ways that I should I should b following in every day I live.