Jesus preached the Good News of the Kingdom of God and taught about it wherever He went.
He compared it to a mustard seed. A tiny seed that when planted grows to tree that birds can perch in. He also compared it to yeast that works its way into the dough and takes effect on it. The Kingdom of God grows and it influences everything it comes in contact with.
This should be the reality of it in our lives. Jesus and His kingship should grow and influence every aspect of our lives. This growth and influence will overflow onto all those around us. As it does, we will experience what the people of Jesus time did when they encountered Him. They “were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.” (Verse 20)
Treasure- something very much valued. (Webster’s 1828 Dictionary)
What do we value most? Jesus speaks of this often in this chapter. He talks about being “rich towards God” (verse 21), seeking His Kingdom first (verse 31), and having our treasure— what we value most— in heaven, God’s dwelling. What we value most, treasure, shows us where are hearts are.
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Luke 12:34).
Our hearts are the most important thing about us. It is where we experience the love, relationship, and intimacy of God.
We cannot experience this if our treasure, what we value most, isn’t God. We cannot experience the life of God if our hearts are far from Him. It is important to ask God, “What do I value most? What is my treasure? God and His ways? Myself and my own ways?”
What we treasure is very important if we want to be close to God and to know Him.
Jesus came so we could know God in an intimate relationship with Him. He has given us all we need to have that relationship.
He taught us to pray.
”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 NIV
He encourages us to ask our Father in heaven to give us the Holy Spirit to live within us and fill us to overflowing.
”If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”“
Luke 11:13 NIV
He tells us we are “blessed” – happy- when we hear the word of God and obey it. Verse 28. Because He knows our obedience to His Word will keep us free from the sin that separates us from Him.
God wants us to be close to Him. We can choose to be close to God in an intimate relationship that gives us freedom, joy, and peace. Jesus provided a way for us to experience this through His death, burial, and resurrection.
Or we can choose to live apart from Him — Never seeking Him in prayer or in His Word, no relationship with the Holy Spirit, following our own desires.
He loves us so and offers us His life for our own good! We get the choice to go His way or ours.
Busyness… This chapter gives accounts of the disciples going out proclaiming the Kingdom of God and healing the sick in all the towns and places Jesus was about to go. AND the account of Jesus spending time at Mary and Martha’s house. Martha was so busy cleaning and cooking as Mary sat at Jesus feet listening to Him.
In all the effort and work that went on in this chapter, two things were pointed out to be the MOST important:
1. Your names are written and Heaven.
2. Sitting at Jesus feet listening to what He says.
Those two things are still the most important for us.
To have our names written in Heaven is to belong to Jesus, to have our names written in the book of life. (Revelations 20:15).
To know Jesus is to be near to Him and listen to what He says — have an intimate relationship with Him. It is knowing Him, His word, and spending time in prayer.
We can accomplish much in this life that will only burn up and be gone. May we choose what will be eternal — Jesus Himself.
Crowds were following Jesus everywhere. They wanted to experience His healing touch and to hear His words.
When Jesus and His disciples were in private, Jesus asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?” The disciples said, “John, Elijah, the prophets of long ago come back to life.” Jesus asked “But what about you?”
What we think about who Jesus is, is important. If He is “God’s Messiah,” the King of Kings, then He deserves the place of King within our hearts. As Lord and King, Jesus tells us how we are to follow Him.
”Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”
Luke 9:23-24 NIV
We must abandon our ways, take up Jesus’s way and follow Him! Jesus’s way is the cross. The cross requires total surrender of ourself (death of our independent ways) so Jesus can live in us.
The crowds, who followed Jesus, could only experience Him from a distance. It was the ones who were His disciples that got to experience His intimacy and friendship.
This is true of us today. We can know about Jesus from a distance, or we can know Him intimately. But we must come to Him on His terms— the cross. His disciples will take up their cross and follow Him.
“(All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus’ words, acknowledged that God’s way was right, because they had been baptized by John. But the Pharisees and the experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.)“
Luke 7:29-30 NIV
God has a purpose, an intention, a design with an end in mind. How sad it is to miss that purpose!
The religious leaders, who rejected Jesus, rejected God’s purpose for themselves. They were wrapped up in their personal power and prestige. Instead of repenting, or turning from their prideful, selfish ways, they fought against the purpose God had for them. The rejected God…
However those who were the outcast and the sinners, were the ones who turned from their own ways. They “acknowledged that God’s way was right.”
We have the same choice in our lives today. God has set before us the choice to come to repent from following our own sinful ways, “acknowledge God’s way is right,” and to follow Him or to continue living however we want to live after ourselves, not God…
We were created to know God and to make Him known. That is our purpose. May His purpose be our highest aim!
Of all the people clamoring to be close to Jesus, Levi (Matthew) was called. The call was simple, “Follow me.” When Matthew heard that call his immediate response was to leave it all behind and follow Jesus wherever He went.
When Jesus called Matthew, He didn’t call a morally upright person. He called a tax collector, a sinner. The religious leaders complained.
“…Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
“Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.””
Luke 5:30-32 NIV
Jesus came for the broken. As Jesus said He came for “the sick.” He came to call “sinners to repentance.”
When He calls, may we respond as Matthew did leaving behind the past life to follow the New Life- Jesus. That is when we will experience Him as our great physician, the one who heals the sickness and brokenness within our hearts.
Years ago the President of the United States spoke at a venue 30 minutes drive from my home. The preparations for his arrival were extensive. Security, the press, state officials were all in action. Publicity of his arrival was everywhere. If you wanted to see him you had to prepare for him to come.
Someone greater than the President has arrived, Jesus the Son of God. In our chapter today, John announced Jesus’s coming. Curiosity consumed the common people.
John preached a baptism of repentance from sin to prepare the peoples’ hearts for Jesus to appear. People despised by the religious elite wanted to know how to be prepared for “God’s salvation.”
“Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?””
Luke 3:12 NIV
We know the story goes on. Jesus did indeed come. He became our Emmanuel, God with us. How do we respond to our invitation to come to Him? Have we “Prepared the way for the Lord” in our hearts?
The tax collectors, the most despised of sinners by the Jewish religious elite came because they wanted more than the wealth they had amassed and approval of the occupying army, the Romans. They asked a question that rings in my heart today. “Teacher, what should we do?”
As we take a few moments each day to prepare our hearts to celebrate the arrival of Jesus to our world during the first Christmas, may we ask the same question. He will not turn away the most despised and desperate one who is trapped by sin. He will not turn us away. What should we do in response to the one who longs to baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire and bring us into a relationship of oneness with Him?
May we ask Jesus the same question the tax collectors asked John all those years ago. “Teacher what should we do?”
“When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.””
Luke 2:48 NIV
Searching for Jesus. So many have done it and still do…
At the time that Jesus was born, the Shepherds searched for Jesus. The Wisemen searched for Him too. (Matthew 2)
Even Mary and Joseph searched for Jesus, when they lost Him on a road trip at the age of twelve. (Verses 41-51).”
At some time in our lives, we all search for Jesus. We all look for something more than the existencial life that we see. Could there be more?
Christmas is God’s answer to that question. For a moment in time, Jesus stepped into our world to show us “Yes, there is something more!” All the miraculous encounters in this chapter of Luke: angels singing, stars shining, Simeon holding Baby Jesus in the temple praising God, the prophetess Anna speaking of Jesus as the long awaited redeemer. These all pointed to that “something more.”
However, we all at some time in our lives miss Jesus. We miss seeing Him for who He truly is and knowing Him as He longs to be known.
Mary and Joseph missed the 12 year old Jesus traveling home from Jerusalem. When they searched for Him for days, they found Him in the temple. He told them He was in His “Father’s house.” They didn’t understand what He was saying to them about His “Father’s house”. Jesus had become familiar to them- their kid.
Jesus can be familiar to us too, but He wants to be so much more to us. We’ve heard about Him for years and every December we have celebrated His birth. BUT He wants to be the One we long for, and search for, the one we KNOW- intimately. We are assured that we too will find Him when we search for Him. He desires to be found.
“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
A few months ago, I was praying. I heard the Holy Spirit tell me, “Janet, do you know that Satan uses noise warfare?” Since the term “noise warfare” was not exactly on my mind, I decided to do a google search. When I did, I found an article about Manuel Noriega. The implications of his story have been eye opening to me as one who has been subject to “noise warfare” for most of my life.
US Soldiers blaring rock and roll music in 1989
On Christmas Day 1989, The United States decided it was time to arrest and bring to justice General Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama. Indicted for drug trafficking charges, Mr. Noriega had holed himself up in the embassy of the Vatican in Panama. The US forces did not want to destroy buildings in order to accomplish a surrender of the surrounded General. So, they engaged in “noise warfare”. They surrounded the Embassy and with a flight of Humvees that were mounted with loudspeakers from which they blasted rock in roll music, nonstop for three days. Noriega, who loved classical music surrendered shortly after. As I read the news report of the events surrounding Noriega’s surrender, the truth set in. This is the exact type of spiritual warfare I have been engaged in most of my life.
Make no doubt about it. Our enemy, Satan, is a liar. Not only is he a liar, he takes great pleasure in repeating lies in our ears over and over and over again. His voice does not tire from spewing lies 24/7 that lead us to choose anxiety, anger, depression, hatred, bitterness, envy, selfishness, jealousy, etc. However, we do not have to be subject to the noise warfare going on within our heads.
About three years ago, I contacted my friend from college. In our conversation, I revealed to her that I was suffering from horrible anxiety. She told me something that to this day rings true, “Janet, you have the Holy Spirit living within you. You know His voice. All you have to do is listen.” It occurred to me that moment that I had listened to the lies of the enemy so long that I had forgotten what it was like to listen for the “still small voice” of the Holy Spirit. I had allowed Satan to shout in my ears and I had been internalizing his lies. It was time to draw a line in the sand and FIGHT!
Do you know that God has a victory plan for the “noise warfare” of our enemy? It is the praise of our glorious God! It silences Satan!
“Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. “ Psalm 8:1-2 NIV
We must make a determined effort to use this weapon we have graciously been given. Satan knows this is true. So he once again will shout his lies, “That won’t work! You look like an idiot praising when you are who you are!” May I encourage you, tell him to “shut it!” and then get your praise on!
Even if the praise you struggle to get out starts with a feeble, “I praise you God, because you are good.” Build on those words with more and more praise. He cannot continue to blare his noise when the praises start! The truth of who God is as you praise Him with His Word will prevail! So, praise and then listen. You will hear His voice. It has been gently speaking all along. In Him is the Victory!
I have rediscovered the past few years how beautiful the sound of God’s voice is! I love it! What I did not know as I listened to the noise of the enemy is that God’s voice was speaking the whole time. Praise helped me to turn the channel of what was being broadcasted in my head. God’s voice is loving. His voice is peace. It is gentle, kind, patient, and good. And best of all, it can be heard! In fact, God longs for us to hear it! He wants us to know His voice and follow no other! Because He loves us and wants what is best for us!
We do not have to live under the constant barrage of the enemy’s lies and his “noise warfare”! We must immerse ourselves in the truth- God’s Word, the Bible, and lift up our voices in praise! Our God still breaks the chains of torment off of the minds of His children! Believe it is so!
Your Love 