So, this may surprise you, but I never got to what I really wanted to talk about Sunday. But the study and conversations were so real, so honest, and so touching, that I just followed the wild goose! Thanks for your wisdom and your brokenness and your honesty. Some great follow-up comments have been posted and I encourage you to take some time to look through all of them.
In Luke 4 (the text I had asked you to read for Sunday) there is the story where Jesus has a 'prophet coming out party' of sorts. He is in his hometown of Nazareth, and stands up to speak in the synagogue. At first everyone seems very pleased with the whole thing. He stands up in verse 16 and reads from the book of Isaiah, and verse 22 tells us that 'All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came form his lips. Isn't this Joseph's son, they asked?' So far, so good.
But then Jesus starts speaking off the cuff and tells them that prophets are not accepted in their hometown, and implies that Jews aren't all they should be, as he pointed out that it was Naaman, the Syrian who was healed of leprosy, and not the Jews.
The crowd's response? 'All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill, on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.'
What made these folks so mad? Why did Jesus choose to make himself known in this way? Why did the honest truth cause them to want to kill Jesus?
2 comments:
In my years of sending out prayers and devotionals, I would sometimes find myself saying, "oooh! That's a really good scripture! Take THAT (fill in the name). But God would immediately remind me that the person I would aim the Word at, could very well turn it back on me.
We are also warned to test the spirits.. be careful of someone who is perceived to be an angel of light, but in reality their actions are just the opposite. Pretty serious stuff. Have to admit I've looked at someone and thought, "is that who that verse is talking about?" Wouldn't it be nice to have a BEBS.. Believer's Emergency Broadcast System that sends out an audible signal when to "Duck and Cover"? It could save a lot of scars and heartaches.
Thankfully, we're not without help.
Relationship with God, reliance on the Holy Spirit for wisdom and discernment, and counsel with friends who themselves are in relationship with God are all needed for our journey. "and there ain't no nothin' we can't love each other through. What would we do baby, without US?" Sha na na na
I have truly learned to trust and lean on those people around me. In the last few weeks, as people who have claimed to support me and believe in me have fallen by the wayside, and decided that I am the plague, my spirits have been buoyed by my true friends.
And it isn't just that they believe in me. I am seeing folks make a stand for what they believe to be RIGHT, even in the face of persecution from other believers. Luke writes his books to Theophilus, which means lover of God. I think he is writing this to all those who are lovers of God, not just one single person. God has shown me many lovers of God recently, not all of whom I could have identified ahead of time.
May we achieve together the peace that Jesus offers in His gospel!
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