Realizing the compassion of Jesus through Luke’s Gospel

This devotional is for everyone!

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There are four gospel stories in the Bible. Luke was the only gospel writer that was not Jewish, he was a gentile. By definition a gentile is someone, that is not Jewish. So, Luke was different from the others, an outcast, maybe- since he wasn’t Jewish, he might have been viewed as less than. That is the first reason why I like him! I root for the underdog! There are also more written accounts of women in Luke’s gospel compared to the other three, that is the second reason why I like him! Luke’s gospel really shows Jesus’ compassion for us. He has deep level compassion for every type of person from sinners, tax collectors, Samaritans, and the poor, you name it, Luke illustrates countless examples of the love of Jesus. Another reason I enjoy Luke’s gospel is it’s a history lesson of sorts. He writes the gospel as an “eyewitness” account, so in an investigator mindset. He admits he wasn’t present to witness with his own eyes, he instead has talked to the people that did witness the works of Jesus. Luke very carefully dates his writings by the ruler and the reign of the time and goes into specific detail. This detail was often criticized by people because they didn’t believe his dates were correct, until the archeology confirmed Luke was very accurate historically. It is my hope that as you take this journey with me through the Gospel of Luke you will be encouraged and feel the hope and love that only Jesus can provide.

I also am going to preface this devotional and tell you that I have no earthly credentials to write this. I am not a theologian, I never went to seminary, I didn’t grow up in the church. I am a simple person that is in love with Jesus. Spiritually I’m qualified and that is enough for me. I am also not going to get everything right, and that is okay too. I know God will not be mad at me. The important thing is that I am sharing His Good News with you through Luke’s Gospel and for that I hope He is well pleased.

The outline of the Gospel of Luke is broken out into seven sections.

* The infancy including the birth of John, the Baptist and the birth of Jesus

* The preparation for the ministry of Jesus

* The ministry of Jesus in Galilee

* The journey to Jerusalem

* The ministry of Jesus in Jerusalem

* The suffering and death of Jesus

* The resurrection of Jesus.

The Gospel of Luke follows the life of Christ in chronological order and the six key themes is God sovereign rule over history, the arrival and presence of the kingdom of God, the coming and indwelling of the Holy Spirit on Jesus and his followers, the great reversal, living a life of prayer and good stewardship, and the danger of riches.

Follow along each day as the Good News of Jesus unfolds. If you do not have a Bible, you can download a free Bible on your phone using the YouVersion Bible app. For this devotion, I will be using the NIV version.

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Luke Chapter One

How do I put 80 verses of Luke chapter one into a single post that makes you fall in love with the Bible. Here’s the thing….I can’t. It’s my hope the Holy Spirit speaks to you and encourages you to give it a try. Your going to have to jump out in faith. Faith is hard because it requires us to BELIEVE without seeing. You’re going to have to have faith because if you haven’t read the Bible before, you might not be familiar with the people or the time period, you might just have no idea what’s going on and it might discourage you. Stay with it. Don’t give up. Here’s the thing, when you start reading the Bible, God is going to illuminate for you what he wants you to hear. There’s no one size fits all, what I get from reading this chapter may not be the same as you get from it. We’re all reading the same words but different thoughts jump out at us depending on where we are in our journey and what we’re going through.

What does Luke chapter one tell me. It tells me that you can want something so bad that you can pray for decades for it and won’t come to fruition until God wants it to! It also tells me that when you pray God hears our prayers. Once your prayer enters the heavens our prayers do not have an expiration date. How glorious is that! Chapter one tells me two men will be born that will be so special they will change my life for the good. A Savior is coming for us! This chapter also tells me to believe God’s word that disbelief will get me nowhere. It also prophesied Armageddon and displayed the great faith of Mary the mother of God. The truth is it is jammed packed full of goodness. Most of all it shows God’s faithfulness for us and it gives me peace knowing that my prayers for my family that haven’t been answered yet are heard loud and clear by God and for that I am truly thankful.

Luke Chapter Two

The picture is from the last moment I would touch my mothers hand. The last day I would see her. In between the moment after we took her off life support and moment before she took her last breath. I’m sharing this picture with you today on day two of us reading the Gospel of Luke together because chapter 2 has a wonderful story of a prophetess named Anna. Even if you aren’t reading along, if you have time to look up Luke chapter 2 verses 36-38 I hope you find comfort in a very short story.  

My mom passed away in June of 2022. I went to visit her in the hospital after her second stroke. During this visit she was talking, however, her words made it clear she was leaving me. She was talking to my brother’s vice principal from when he was in high school and that was a very long time ago. You see my brother was in trouble a lot when he was in high school. Anyway, they were eating ice cream cones together. This made me smile because it told me that on earth this man always brought her bad news, But now, they’re eating ice cream cones together. Wow! Even the walk to heaven is wonderful! It also made me sad because I knew I was losing my mom for real. The times I would see her from this point on I would be able to count on one hand. I immediately went to the Bible to read to her and I read this scripture about my dear prophetess Anna. I knew that my mom’s favorite book in the Bible was Acts and I knew that Luke wrote both acts and his gospel, so I thought my mom would find it comforting. Well, let’s face it, I read it because I knew it would comfort me. It was comforting to me because there is so much hope and promise with Anna – her dedication, her devotion her service, the fact that she found comfort in the presence of the Lord even though she suffered great loss. You see Anna was probably over 100 years old and she was a widow for a long time and she went to church day and night. She prayed and she worshiped and she fasted. She lived her life in the presence of the Lord. I knew I would soon suffer the loss of my mother and I knew I would find comfort too in the presence of Lord. There’s so much hope and so many lessons that we can learn and apply to our lives in only three short verses. Here’s what I’ve learned from Anna

 Keep praying

Have faith in God’s timing

Trust God even if it’s taking a long time

God uses seemingly insignificant people

Age is not a factor in serving God

Live a life in worship and prayer and when you do, it’s easier to recognize the work of God

God always keeps his promises.

There is also the Christmas story in this chapter of Luke, our Savior is born! God loved us so much that he sent Jesus to be born of the Virgin Mary to be crucified and resurrected for the forgiveness of our sins. Don’t forget why Christmas is so special. It is because of Jesus and because of God’s unwavering love for us! 

Luke Chapter Three

I’m going to warn you right from the beginning. This one might be a little bit long today. Because it’s all about baptism and if you know me, you know I love baptism! 

Declaring your faith in the presence of others is what water baptism is. Being saved that is something different. If you have not been saved yet, and you want to, read Romans 10:9. And believe that scripture in your heart and confess it out loud with your mouth. It’s not anything more than that. It is simple it doesn’t require a huge ceremony, Don’t let religion fool you. Okay, now let me tell you about my daughter’s baptism. 

My daughter was baptized in the Catholic church when she was an infant but since she was so little I was declaring my faith for her. She wasn’t declaring it for herself. That is the key, that is why her baptism was so special. We can want all of the best things for our children. We can wish it, we can hope it, we can pray for it into the heavens, but faith and belief in our Savior is not something I could do for her. She had to realize it and she had to want it and she had to believe it on her own. She lived through dark times before she was saved, dark times that I will never fully realize or truly understand and feel what she went through. I prayed many, many nights all the nights for years. I placed a prayer in the Western Wall in Jerusalem earlier in the year for her salvation and for her sobriety. Because I fully knew the only way she was going to be at peace and be free of alcohol and drugs was to have the Holy Spirit in her. After her fall in sobriety after almost 2 years of living clean, she finally realized that her sobriety wasn’t going to come in her own strength. It was going to come in the Lords strength and she went down to see Pastor Pyzer at Hidden Valley Community Church and she got saved. I didn’t get to see that part. However, this summer she was baptized in front of the congregation of our church and let me tell you heaven shined down on my daughter, and I was filled with so much joy, I was literally yelling and screaming and jumping like a mad woman. . For all your mom’s out there, keep praying, our prayers don’t have an expiration date. 

In Luke chapter 3 it talks about baptism. When John the Baptist was baptizing Jews in the Jordan River, he was baptizing people for the repentance of sin because spiritual salvation wasn’t a thing yet . When the Jews were baptized by John the Baptist, it was for repentance and so their hearts and ears were open to receive Jesus as their Savior when that time came. Crowds of people would come down to the Jordan River and they were confused about repentance and baptism, and they said how do we repent from our sin and John the Baptist said do something different than you did before you were baptized. If you have two shirts, give one away, if you are a tax collector and you take more money than is owed , stop doing that. So baptism is a public display that says you are going to live your life different. And when you belong to a church community and you’re baptized in the presence of a congregation, those people help you stay on the course in what you promised to the Lord. That is why church community is so important. Those are the people that help us stay true to our true selves, the person God knows us to be.

I was blessed to be able to take a trip to Israel early this year in March. On this trip we had the option to get baptized in the clean part of the Jordan River or the janky part of the Jordan River. I remember the night before baptism day. I called Greg and I said I want to get baptized again but can I get baptized in the janky part of the river because that’s the place or the closer place to where Jesus was baptized. And he said absolutely not. You’re not getting in the dirty water. He says I love you. Our family needs you and you can’t get sick . And I said well I can get baptized in the cleaner part of the river but that’s really far away from where Jesus was baptized and he said well you can get baptized there in the cleaner part of the Jordan River and as the spiritual leader of the family and out of respect for my husband, I chose to get baptized in the cleaner part of the Jordan River. I have to tell you that honestly, it didn’t matter what part of the Jordan River I was baptized in, my baptism in the Jordan River was completely life-changing. When I professed my faith at 50 years old compared to when I was 7 years old the declaration of faith and the entire experience was on a completely different level. The amount of love that I could feel from the heavens was unspeakable, meaning I can’t find a word in the English language that could adequately convey what I felt. In that moment although it was just a second or two was enough for me to tell my Savior, I’m getting it Jesus, I’m just starting to understand a little bit. Keep teaching me oh Lord! Thank you for not giving up on me, from now until the end of my days I will do everything that you ask me to do even if it’s scary. I will trust you in everything and I will not stop declaring your goodness and I will not hide my testimony from anyone because you saved me! You help me to realize that I have no enemies, that I want everyone to be saved. Even the people that don’t like me because I do not want anyone to go to hell. I want everyone to feel your love I want everyone to receive miracles from you , I will do everything for you because I love you! That is what my baptism was in the Jordan River. It was all of those things and so much more.

It’s so beautiful. Don’t miss it people! 

Luke Chapter Four

“Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.” Luke 4:8

When Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days he was tempted by the devil. He was tempted hard. You see the devil thought that Jesus greatest need was food, because he hadn’t had a thing to eat in 40 days. The devil said take these stones and turn them into bread. Jesus didn’t fall for it and neither should we. Here’s the lesson. The devil will get you where your weakness is so you have to arm yourself with the words of God. And where do you find words from God? Yes in the Bible. In verse 13 and it says when the devil had finished all this tempting he left him until an opportune time. Opportune time is the keyword. Be on guard always for the enemy wanting to enter your life and be prepared for the enemy to use your weakest areas in your life anginst you in an effort to keep you down, Keep you away from God.

The enemy will disguise itself. It might appear as something beautiful because why would the enemy come to you in something scary like we see on TV? The enemy is crafty. It will lure you. It will draw you in. 

The devil might be saying no one loves you, but the Bible tells you that God loves you and he proved it by dying for you. That’s in Romans Chapter 5: 8, or what about you’re not attractive? Well go to Psalm 139:14 and it says I fearfully and wonderfully created you. Or what about this- You’re an unwanted child. Well again, go to the next verse in Psalm 139:15 and 16 and it says you’re never an accident . 

It’s so easy to lose focus and let your guard down. I encourage you to get into the practice of when a negative thought enters your mind to turn that negative thought around into something positive. Remember who God says you are in the Bible.  

The enemy might also be luring you away from church and fellowship with other Christians because he makes you believe other things are more important. He might say well you have all that yard work to do. You need to do yard work instead of going to church. Or maybe it’s football. You can’t miss the game. It’s going to be a good one and sometimes TV keeps you away from church. Sleep, sleep has kept me from church before. We’re tired right? We have to get our sleep. We can’t wake up early to go to church or attend a Bible study.  

It’s so easy to put other things and people in front of the Lord. In fact, when I was a Catholic, I prayed to Mary, where in the Bible does it say to pray to Mary? Stay true to the Bible no matter what your religion is telling you.  

Many things in your life can be a substitute for God. What about our own will? Do we worship ourselves instead of God? What about focusing on your past- the mistakes that you’ve made- that can take you away from worshiping our Lord.  

Tough questions huh.  

Don’t let your past, your religion, or fear keep you away from a life with God. God is knocking, He just wants you to open the door.

This picture is the place where the home of Simon Peter is. This was where Jesus healed his mother-in-law in the house at Capernaum.  

Luke Chapter Five

It’s not about fishing

This is going to sound foolish but my first morning in Tiberias our hotel was on the Sea of Galilee. After breakfast I took a walk and I could hear the birds singing and the fishes were jumping out of the water and this thought came into my mind that this is what it must have been like for Simon Peter, when all the fishes were jumping into the boat. I know it’s silly but immediately I was taken to Luke chapter 5:5.  What a gift that feeling was. I will remember it forever.

There are so many wonderful examples of Jesus’s compassion for us in chapter 5. If you watch The Chosen on TV this story, it will be immediately recalled in your memory from season one. “Simon answered master. We’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything but because you say so I will let town the nets.” Why does this resonate with me? Well sometimes the Lord asks us to do stuff and we think we know better than He does. But we go along with it because we respect and honor Him and then we are amazed by what He has done.  

Simon had been out all night fishing and didn’t catch one thing. He spent hours and hours on the boat and nothing happened. And Jesus tells him get back in the boat and put down the nets. Simon is an expert fisherman. This is his job. He’s done it since he was little. His father did it before him. In all seriousness Simon thinks he knows better than Jesus. And then after all the boats were filled with fishes, Simon falls to his knees and he says go away Lord, I am a sinful man and Jesus says don’t be afraid. Follow me and Simon leaves everything and follows him. 

Why was Simon afraid? Well he was afraid because he was no longer in control. He realized that he’d have to give up himself and all he ever knew, but he knew that it was going to be worth it to live your life for Jesus.  

Countless examples of Jesus telling us to not be afraid. I think that’s hard to sink in sometimes that when you live a life with Jesus, you do not live in fear. There’s no reason to be afraid. The Lord is extremely generous to those that love Him.  For us humans, having faith is extremely hard because we’ve been taught and conditioned our entire life that we need to see it to believe it. A lot of us are like stubborn in that way. It’s hard for us to trust people. We want to be control freaks about our work and life situations, but living this way is very stressful.  We create this stressful environment on our own.  Let’s try doing what Simon Peter does, let’s fall at the feet of Jesus and surrender. Let’s follow the words of Jesus even when it doesn’t make sense. It’s scary but it’s so worth it! 

Luke Chapter Six

I really enjoy this chapter. In this chapter, Jesus displays once again his compassion and love that God has for his people. This chapter talks about the Sermon on the Mount. It talks about the importance of loving your enemies and it talks about fruit trees. I’m really excited to know what your favorite part is?

Here are some of my favorite verses;
Luke‬ ‭6:9‬ ‭NIV‬‬
[9] Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?”

I love this verse because it shows the compassion of Jesus. You see God cares about people not violations.

‭‭Luke‬ ‭6:5‬ ‭NIV‬‬
[5] Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”.

I also love this verse because Jesus is saying I am the Lord of the sabbath and if it doesn’t offend me it shouldn’t offend you. The Pharisees just didn’t get it. And today so many people still just don’t get it.

Let’s focus on verse 30 for a minute. Jesus says give to everyone who asks you and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back, due to others as you would have them do to you. Otherwise known as the golden rule. I imagine if we all did this our world would be a utopia and wonderful world that would be, wouldn’t it.

Jesus gave grace freely. How come we don’t do the same to those around us. How many of us have had friendships ended or marriages ended over things that could have been easily reconciled if we had just given a little grace. How important are things to you? I borrowed a pair of socks from my friend Thanh and let me tell you, honestly I never returned the socks to her and I apologized after a couple months. I told her, I’m sorry I still have your socks and I haven’t returned them. She said keep the socks, really I want you to have them, I don’t need them back. I appreciate her grace because she’s still my friend, even though I didn’t return her socks to her. And every time I put on those socks, they’re really comfortable by the way, I think of her and I think about her grace and her friendship.

Isn’t that what Jesus is saying in the scriptures? Friendships mean more than a pair of socks . People and connection and family are more important than things are. Interactions with people are more important than our belongings. Leave the belongings behind. Don’t worry about your stuff. Leave it behind. Follow Jesus. Let go of the worldly things because God will provide for it all and the friendships that are meant to last will last because God is also in control of those.

Luke Chapter Seven

A key part of this chapter is understanding that Jesus came here to overturn death because death wasn’t part of God’s original plan. From the start all God wanted for us was bliss and happiness and beauty! We got death and sin from Adam and Eve and the serpent. It wasn’t part of original God’s plan. And in Genesis it talks about after Adam and Eve sin they ran and from God. Ashamed because they were naked and they were afraid because they knew that they had done something that God told them not to do. And sometimes we tend to hide from God and from the church because we’re afraid of our sins. It’s scary to admit that you’re a sinner. So I hate to break it to you but we all sin. The only thing that makes us clean is the blood of Jesus.

I love the story of how Jesus raised the widow’s son. And one of the the reasons why the story is important is because it shows Jesus’s great compassion because Jesus fully understood that this woman who was a widow and the son that died was her only son, why that is significant is, back in these days a woman left by herself with no husband or children would be destitute. Jesus did not want to see her live her life this way, so he raised her son and said get up, and gave him back to his mother. Beautiful image of the depth that God cares for us, if sending his only son to be crucified for us wasn’t enough here’s another example of the compassion of Jesus for humanity.

** He doesn’t want any of us to be destitute** This love that He has for the widow He also has for us.

Another favorite story of mine is how Jesus was anointed by a sinful woman. I love this scripture story because it reminds us that we are sinners. And the Pharisees they didn’t believe in Jesus (being the Son of God) because they refused to recognize their sin as what it was. They think that Jesus didn’t apply to them because they were free from sin. They didn’t understand the power of forgiveness to change your life. It seems to me the closer you get to God the more you notice your sins and you notice how much that you need Jesus. The more that you are in God’s word or the more you go to church, you realize yourself in the scriptures and in the words of God. And sometimes we don’t like our reflection. We don’t like to see ourselves exposed in the eyes of Jesus. As believers, we must acknowledge our sin even though it makes us vournable and is a little scary.

The Pharisees deflected onto the audacity of this woman – I think because it was easier for them to throw stones instead of looking in the mirror. This woman she wasn’t pretending to be something that she wasn’t, she knew Jesus would know exactly who she was She gave everything and showed great love to Jesus because she saw who he was the gift that he had to change her life. So being a woman she knew she wasn’t invited to the pharisee’s house, but she made her way to this dinner the dinner she knew she wouldn’t be welcomed too, around people that would judge her but she didn’t care, and not only that she brought her best perfume, she fell at his feet, she wasn’t afraid to say I’m a sinful woman. I’ve done bad things but I love you and I want to do everything I can to show you my love. And all I can do is annoint your feet with my perfume and wipe away my tears on your feet with my hair. I do this for you because I see you Holy One. He says to the woman that had many sins that her faith has saved her and that she could go in peace.

Trust that God’s love for you is greater than your sin. The Lord will make your path straight.

Luke Chapter Eight

Your life is under new management!

Verse 25, I love this verse and it essentially tells us that if we are followers of Jesus that are life is under new management. Jesus has authority over the wind and the waves. Our relationship to danger will never be the same again when we give ourselves over to faith in Jesus, a new dynamic opens up for us regarding our safety and our future. There is so much hope and encouragement to know that God has the final say in the danger, so don’t fall for the trap of the enemy. What’s important is the attitude in our life regarding the hardships and the dangers.
And those lessons that we go through in the seasons of our life and those hard times, we learn through those experiences, as He is preparing us for the future.

I also love verse 38-39, after the demons left the man He wanted to go with Jesus and Jesus tells him, return home and tell everyone how much God has done for you and so the man went away and told all the town how much Jesus had done for him. This is what we can take from this verse, we must share our testimony. The truth is our testimony, when we tell it and we share it, it changes people’s lives.

Now I really want to talk about the next story. The sick woman, the bleeding woman! This story shows us that when we go to Jesus in faith that he feels it and that he notices it and that amazing things happen when you put your faith in Jesus. All this woman had to do was simply touch his cloak and immediately her bleeding stopped and in verse 45 he says who touched me and he doesn’t let it go. He says someone touched me who touched me. Even the slightest touch He can feel. And the women presents herself and He says daughter, Your faith has healed you going peace. This is so comforting to me to know that God sees us, and God hears us, that we are daughters, and that He heals us.

This woman who bled for years and years and years she was very sick and I know this because I bled for about a year and a half and it was absolutely terrible, I can’t imagine for 12 years. I lost so much blood. I was weak. I was out of breath constantly and I got so bad that when the second doctor I went to who finally believed that I wasn’t just an old lady complaining about her menstrual cycle, ran a blood test and when she got the results she called me personally from the airport and she said go to the hospital immediately, I don’t know how you’re still alive. Long story short, I went to the hospital, stayed in the hospital and got unit after unit after unit of blood. I then had two surgeries after this, and iron infusions, and finally I am cured. I resonate with this story of the sick woman because in her time she was ceremonial unclean and no one wanted to be around her she lived a life of solitude. She would do absolutely anything to get better and she believes in all of her heart that Jesus can heal her. I know what it’s like to not be able to go anywhere or to do anything because I experienced that in my own ordeal. It was so hard for me to go to work and the only reason why I could go to work is because thankfully my office is right next door to the bathroom. I had to carry around changes of clothes with me and I had to put towels in my car. I could barely go grocery shopping. I’m so thankful that I went and got a second opinion, I went and saw a new doctor and I’m so grateful that she listened to me and that she believed me. I call it a modern day Jesus miracle. If my friend Thanh didn’t encourage me to call this doctor and get a second opinion who knows where’d I be today.

Jesus has authority overall over demons over sickness over death. Amazing things happen when you put your faith in Jesus!

Luke Chapter Nine

Are you in a faith slump?

In the beginning of Luke chapter 9, Jesus calls the 12 and he tells them to go out proclaim the Kingdom of God and heal the sick. He gave them power and authority to carry out the task, but he told them that they weren’t going to take anything with them. No staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt . So basically go out tell the people about my kingdom and have total faith only in me only in God! And they did. They did that. How good are we at doing that?

Do you believe God has it all, or are you just going through the motions of being a Christian. Are you snacking on the word of God? Are you just giving God one minute in a morning devotional, maybe you need to do a little more. It’s like me wanting to lose 10 lb but all I’m willing to do is take the stairs. I don’t want to go outside and exercise or thinking if I just buy the gym membership the 10 lb is just going to come off. The point here is we have to do something to make our faith strong. Just like when we want to lose weight we have to do two things right? We have to get our nutrition under control and we have to exercise, well the same things are required in order to grow in faith. The nutrition is being and feeding yourself with the word, and the second thing is exercise and to exercise means you go out and do something. Be it ministry, serving, doing something for others. That is how you get out of your faith slump .

One of the challenges in getting engaged in the word of God might be you don’t get much from reading the word, so I encourage you to find ways that makes the scriptures click for you. Do you understand better when you hear the word instead of reading the word? If that’s the case, the bible app can read the Bible to you. You can download the Bible on audible and and have the words read to you. You can also go on YouTube and there is a lot of Christian content. Everything that you can ever imagine is on YouTube. You can watch different people speak about the Bible. (That is where I found Lisa Harper and James River Church). Find something that clicks with you and go from there. If reading the Bible doesn’t do it, then explore other options because it’s going to take more than going to church every Sunday. That’s just going through the motions. That is what I call snacking you’re not going to get any nutrients from a 35 minute sermon once a week.

Another message from this chapter is God wants us to be centered on him and other people. Take a look at verse 23 through 26. You have to stop worrying about you. There’s a saying that you can’t love others until you love yourself. Is that true? Who said that? Easy for worldly things to trump.what we read in the Bible and those worldly things can seep into our being. Denying yourself is in essence dying of self. In Philippians chapter 2 verse 3 it says,” Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves”

Where in the Bible does it say you only live once so live as you please, doesn’t the Bible say live as God pleases? The world says speak what you want, but the Bible says speak with grace and this one you might be mad at me lol, follow your heart, where in the Bible does it say follow your heart but rather follow God’s heart right? A classic from Jerry Maguire movie. You complete me, a phrase I longed to hear in my early 20s from the man of my dreams. Did anyone ever say that to me? Nope, no one ever did. But it’s okay because I know now that Christ completes me . So I think you get my message here. Worldly truths are not God’s truths. Get your substience through God, remember he feed the 5000. A fun fact, the Resurrection and the story of Jesus feeding the 5000 is the only miracle that it appears in all four of the gospels.

The point here is if you try to preserve your life for yourself, you will die. If you give your life for him, you will find your life.

The good news is that we can change, we can do better. And I know this to be true because in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5:17 God said I made you a brand new person! In him we are changed. We are different. The old self is gone and a new person emerges . Let your light shine bright and arm yourself with the Word. And don’t leave God out of the solution. Don’t look to the world to find the solution for you. Look to God.

Luke Chapter 10
Who is my neighbor

Chapter 10 starts off with Jesus sending out the 72 and this story only appears in the gospel of Luke. I like verse 4. It says “do not take a purse or bag or sandals and do not greet anyone on the road.” Specifically that “do not greet anyone on the road” meaning he didn’t want them to get distracted. And how easy is it for us to get distracted. For me easy 😂! I also appreciate this story for two other things. In verse 16 that one tells me that not everyone is going to believe in the Kingdom of God. It’s our job to talk about the Kingdom and to profess our testimony, but not everyone is going to be on board with you, they’re going to reject you because they have a prideful attitude that doesn’t allow them to fully comprehend the good works of Jesus and see how much they need Jesus because they think that they can make it on their own. Those people think that just by being a good person gets you a ticket to heaven and to eternal life and that simply isn’t true. So Jesus is saying in this verse that if the people reject you don’t take it personally. They are rejecting God. And then in verse 20 he’s saying to his disciples, Don’t let the power and authority that I have given you get to your head. Do not rejoice that you have the power that the spirits submit to you but rejoice rather that your names are written in heaven. So again God and Jesus give the authority. Nothing comes from us, and then focus and rejoice not in the works you do here on earth but rejoice that you will have eternal life in heaven.

When we get to the parable of the Good Samaritan. I really like the image that Jesus describes in this parable. We have been reading along and the last few chapters all focused on Jesus’s earthly ministry. All of the people that he healed all of the miracles that he performed and the Pharisees were blind to it all. The Pharisees continue to test Jesus trying to get him to break the law and try to catch him in something and at this point I’m very irritated that they don’t get it. And I’m going to digress here because I’m going to tell you a story unrelated to the Gospel, but a story nonetheless, that still irritates me.

Greg and I were at a fundraiser and there was an item on the silent auction table. It was a beautiful US flag. It was a metal flag, and I of course wanted it for obvious reasons, I love my country, and my son is a Marine. There was a lady there. She also wanted the flag and we were in a bidding war on the silent auction paper. So as both of us are standing there, I said to her how much are you willing to pay for the flag and she said oh well, I’d pay a lot because this flag is really important to me and I said oh do you have a child in the military and she said no and I said oh do you have family members in the military and she said no. I said oh, can I ask why is this flag special to you? And she says oh my husband has a flag room and I want to buy it for him to put up in his flag room. And I said oh well I really want this flag because my son’s a Marine and this flag means so much to me. This flag is a part of my soul. When my son went to boot camp he stood on the yellow footprints the same yellow footprints that other Marines that fought and died for our country stood on since 1963. All those men and women freely stood on those footprints willing to give up their life for our freedom. You see this flag is not just for me, but it’s for all of the families of the military, when I see the flag on my wall, I know the sacrifice. I feel the sacrifice. I live the sacrifice . You see I don’t get to see my son everyday, I don’t get to talk to him whenever I want, we miss holidays and birthdays together, he wasn’t there when we put my mother in the ground and he risks his life for your freedom and he does it willingly. This lady certainly didn’t get it and the Pharisees well they didn’t get it either. And no I didn’t come home with that flag, but it’s okay. Who knows, maybe someday her child will be in the military and then all those flags in her husband’s flag room will mean something different to her. And in all honesty, it’s just another example of earthly things not needed in the Kingdom of Heaven.

So back to the parable Jesus is the Good Samaritan. And what he outlines here is how we’re supposed to treat people. All people, not just the people we like. Your neighbors? They’re not all going to be like you. People that you come across in your daily walk in life are not going to be like you and you’re to love them anyway, just like Jesus does. In the story it says a priest passed the man and a levite past the man, both religious elite, both left this man to die. What you and I are supposed to have is a heart of compassion. Compassion to all. Not just people we like, not just people that are like us. And some people on this earth are not going to do this. They’re going to walk past people and let them die. Our lesson here is to be better to be the good Samaritan.

Luke Chapter Eleven
Glorious promises
That is a lot of content that you can dissect from this chapter. I like the beginning of the chapter where the disciples asked Jesus how to pray because sometimes praying is hard and it’s especially hard for a new believer. I also like verses 9 and 10.
[9] “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. [10] For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What glorious promises this is for us!

I really love this verse because praying is at the heart of truly having a relationship with God. We see Jesus countless times going to pray to his father. In essence, Jesus is living the example of how He wants us, his disciples, to understand the power and importance of prayer. He is modeling the behavior He wants us to have. And in the beginning of chapter 11, the disciples ask Jesus, “How do we pray”, and that’s where Jesus gives us the Lord’s prayer. The Lods Prayer is very special to me, but that’s another story for another day. The Lord’s Prayer is a lot of things and one thing it is is an outline. It’s a guide of how we should pray and sometimes we just want to recite it and I do that a lot because this prayer gives me great comfort. However, if we look a little deeper into what He’s telling us here, it can really change our prayer life and how we pray. At our church we had a guest sermon by a member of our congregation, his name is Rich. Anyway, Rich basically said are you praying a laundry list and I’m paraphrasing here, but basically it’s not all about needs and gets; there’s more to prayer than just spouting out the laundry list of what you need from God. Because He already knows what we need. We don’t even have to speak it. He knows it. But what God wants from us is a relationship. When you come to know Jesus as your savior, God becomes your father. And he is our Holy Father and we are asking Him that His will be done in our lives. There is nothing more glorious than to have our life be how God wills it, We just need to get out of the way. We need Him to feed us. We need Him to strengthen us, to give us wisdom and courage. We also need forgiveness not for salvation because we know that our sins are already forgiven. But for lack of forgiveness for others sins towards us, because our not forgiving others is distancing ourselves from Him. My daughter was discussing with us the other day about forgiveness because she was having a hard time with the idea of forgiving others and I want to say it on this post and hopefully you’re reading it. I know my posts are long. There’s just so much goodness in the Bible. Anyway, I told her that you can forgive others without letting the person back into your life. Basically you can release the debt by forgiveness. It doesn’t mean that you’re agreeing to go back into that mistake or into that relationship because that wasn’t healthy for you, but look at forgiveness as releasing the debt. It feels great to realease it and be free of it.

Be persistent. You want to keep knocking, you want to keep praying because it doesn’t say in the scripture how long you have to knock or how many times you have to knock. So basically don’t just ring the doorbell and run. Don’t be a doorbell ditcher. Pray and pray and pray until you get the breakthrough. I’m going to be real with you. There’s been moments in my life that I have been down on my knees, sobbing in prayer in full intimacy with my Savior. So praying to God, to your Heavenly Father is so much different than just saying prayers, in fact, sometimes saying prayers is just empty religion, when someone asks me to say a prayer, the first thing in my head is I don’t want to, because for me prayer is something intimate with me and my Father. However, with that being said, I just want to say here, that the more you pray the less harder it becomes.

The second part I want to talk about is this, your heart is more important than religion. The Pharisees, they had so many rules and laws and they nitpicked Jesus all the time. For example, in this chapter verses 38-41, it’s not about how elaborate your hand washing techniques are or how sparkling clean your plates and dishes are on the outside. Who are you in the inside? That is what matters. We don’t need fancy titles to get noticed in the eyes of God. We don’t need to follow a laundry list of rules to see the promised land. Those laundry list of rules and those clean dishes are never going to get us to be in an intimate relationship with God. That relationship that is the most precious gift of all!

I’m going to end with this thought, if you don’t want to believe it doesn’t matter what miracles you see, you will find a way to explain them away. Miracles don’t change hearts. Jesus does. Nothing on the exterior matters in the eternal. If you are unwilling to see the light, your life will remain in the darkness. I pray that you open your eyes and don’t quit knocking.

Luke Chapter Twelve

Eternity deserves our focus

Changing the way we think is often challenging. In this chapter it talks about not to worry and  not to desire possessions. What happens when those bumps in the road appear? If we focus on the bumps like,  illness, death, losing a job, etc. If we focus on those things it takes our eye off of Jesus. In verse 6 (which I love) it says, that God knows everything about me. He  knows the number of hairs on my head, He knows me intimately, and if we concentrate on how much God knows us and loves us all of the bumps in the roads, well he’s got those. Any type of worry that I give to the things going on in the earthly world takes away from Him.

Instead of living for life on Earth, focus on living your eternal life with him. In verse 22 He says do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body and what you will wear  for life is more than food and the body, more than clothes.  All we have to do is seek the Kingdom of God and everything is going to be taken care of.  Faith! 

I want to spend a little time talking about the end of the chapter. It’s says in verse 51, “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No I tell you but division.” And when I read that the first time I was confused. So you might be confused too. But what I’ve learned is that Jesus was about truth, and the truth in essence makes people divided. Truth by it’s very nature allows us to be divided because you either embrace the truth or you don’t. But what is most important is to speak the truth in love always.

In my Bible I have a star next to verse 57.  To me it is a reminder, that I’ve already settled out of court for my transgression . In this verse Jesus says,  “try hard to be reconciled on the way, or your adversary may drag you off to the judge”. We already settled when we accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior in essence that is settling out of court. We don’t need to go see the judge. 

Our take away from this chapter ,Be lReady and be clear-minded, He is coming back. Are you ready? This chapter reminds us that believers we will be judged. We’re not going to be judged on our sin because that was dealt with at the cross but we are going to be judged on our integrity. How did we live our life? We don’t want to be caught sleeping when He comes, and we don’t want to be caught with no oil left for our lamps. Are you ready, if not start today! 

A little note about the photo. 1 year ago today my son was on those yellow footprints I talked about, This was him in that moment.  The marine photographer takes pictures throughout boot camp and if you’re lucky enough you’ll spot your son or your daughter and some of those. They only post a few.  How life changing this moment was for him. And believing in Jesus while that’s pretty life-changing too ❤️. 

Luke Chapter Thirteen

Are you giving more compassion to animals then you are to people? Funny to think about isn’t it, if you know me you would know I spoil my dog way more than I spoil my husband. I’m guilty as charged!

I’m going to start chapter 13 talking about verse 2, ‭‭Luke‬ ‭13:2‬ ‭NIV‬‬
[2] Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? Sometimes we are under the misconception that there’s two types of people, good people and bad people and you’re either one or the other. A sinner is a sinner. There is not a worse sinner. I think we like to compare people to people and God doesn’t do that. He compares people to himself in which we can’t compare. We don’t measure up at all. I think that that’s what’s hard about the Gospe.l It smacks us hard right in the face. It injures our human pride. We have to admit and be comfortable admitting that we’re sinners. And second of all, we have to admit that we need the cross and the reality of the cross tells us that we’re not good enough. We don’t measure up, that we couldn’t do it on our own, and Jesus had to die to pay for our sins. And that’s a hard thing for people to admit because of our ego and because of our own pridefulness.

The crippled woman is a perfect display of Jesus’s compassion for people. Starting in verse 15 Jesus starts scolding the Pharisees calling them hypocrites because they were mad that Jesus healed her on a sabbath day. And he is telling them they were adding words to God’s rules making them something that they weren’t intended to be. When is doing a miracle an act of working/ laboring. That was something the Pharisees made up. That’s religion. That’s not God. Jesus is saying you feed your donkeys on the sabbath. Why wouldn’t we heal this poor woman and set her free from 18 years of being crippled. What is wrong with you? He’s calling them hypocrites. And I just love this display of Jesus compassion that he immediately set her free from her infirmity. Oh How He loves us!

Verse 33, ‭‭Luke‬ ‭13:33‬ ‭NIV‬‬
[33] In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!
This reminds me that there’s no threat that should change my course. Like Jesus says I am not changing my plans nothing is going to derail me from my Father’s plan. The fox might be in our lives currently with health issues, financial struggles, or marital issues,it could be anything, and if you’re struggling, I would encourage you to pray to our Heavenly Father ash Him to give us the courage and faith like Jesus has in this scripture. To have this attitude of courageous faith to not be derailed or change your course.

We must be ready. Jesus is coming back I hope you’re one of the few that will enter in the narrow gate.

Luke Chapter Fourteen 

Allegory and Hyperbole

I’m going to tell you that when I first read the gospel I was sort of lost. I started at John. After I  finished I couldn’t really tell you what I read or what it meant. Truly the only things that stuck in my mind was the words,’ truly I say to you.” And I said to myself wow, How many times did Jesus say truly I say to you, but  I knew that Jesus was talking to me and saying listen to my words that I’m saying to you.  And then the other two things I got was the only way to heaven is through belief in Jesus and that Jesus performed a lot of miracles and he healed a lot of people. And that’s all that I got. That is all I was supposed to get. So, if you’re reading through and you’re having a hard time, just stay with it. You’re not supposed to understand it the first time around. And if you do, you’re brilliant!  I didn’t get parables at all. In fact I had to read them over and over and I still read them over and over. So, don’t get frustrated about the parables. 

Verse 14, The  parable of the great banquet is full of allegory. The master is God,  The first invitation is to Israel by the prophets in the Old Testament. The final invitation is Jesus and the unwilling guest that chose to ignore the invitation is the Jews or the Israelites, but it’s not isolated to just Jews and Israelites. It basically pertains to anyone who chooses to ignore the gospel. DON’T IGNORE THE INVITATION. God gives us free will, we have a choice, to accept the invitation or not. Remember there’s consequences to our choices. God wants us to be one of his children. He wants us to receive the sacrifice of his son Jesus on the cross.  

‭‭Hyperbole

Luke‬ ‭14:26‬ ‭NIV‬‬

[26] “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.”

Jesus isn’t telling us to hate our family. He is using hyperbole. What he’s telling us is that no love in our life is to be greater than our love for Him.  This is a hard one to dissect. We love our family, and Jesus uses radical language here to get our attention, to get us to listen. Devotion and obedience to him must be so absolute so to appear as hatred by comparison. 

I’m going to be honest with you. This is really hard and it’s not something that we can work on, it’s an incredible demand. And you might say I can’t do this. I can’t put God first over my family. So what I’m going to ask you to do is to pray about it. Pray to God, come to Him humbly and say, you know me  my Heavenly Father. I can’t do this. If I am ever going to live a life as your disciple I need the power of your Holy Spirit.  Jesus you have to give this to me,. I cannot do it by myself, only in you is this even possible. Holy Spirit rest upon me.  Amen.

My daughter and I were talking about this very thing. Her daughter is 18 months old and of course my daughter loves her daughter more than anything in this world and she said, “how can I love Jesus more than I love my daughter”, and she said , “do you love Jesus more than you love me”, and I said yes I do. It’s not to say that I don’t love my family because I do. But you have to love Jesus more because  if he calls you to do something, you’re not going to let your family hinder you from answering the call. If Jesus called me to move my life to the other side of the country to serve Him and my daughter said please don’t go, I don’t want you to go. Greg and I would still go. Because that is the cost of being a disciple.  I believe that when God calls us God has already prepared the way for us,  but here’s the thing you have to be willing and you have to be ready to go,  to do, or to give.  

Luke chapter 15
You are My Glory and my Joy!

If you follow me on social media for any amount of time, you’ve probably heard me reference photos of my children saying they are my glory and my joy. I picked up this phrase from Levi Lusko probably about 8 years ago. I Heard him talking about the scriptures and he said that this is how Jesus thinks about us. When I heard him speak about this it sounded exactly like how I think of my own children, and from that moment on, I could fully comprehend the love that Jesus has for me. When you recognize that love and you truly understand it for exactly what it is and what it means, it changes everything.

The parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin explains to us exactly how much we are loved! When you are literally found, and you come to recognize Jesus as your savior, the heavens rejoice! All of heaven cheers for us when we are saved!

The parable of the lost son otherwise known as the prodigal son starts at verse 11. This parable lives in my heart. The younger son wants to give into the desires of the flesh and the father, he gives him his inheritance with no questions asked (God will never take away our free will), and the son well he takes off. He goes far away from the light and realizes when he’s down and out- in a bad spot. He realizes that living as a servant in his father’s house will actually set him free. He comes to his senses. What I like about this is, the son, he didn’t have the usual attitude, “I got myself into this. I’ll get myself out of this”, the prodigal son he didn’t say that. And even though the prodigal son got himself in a bad situation, he was able to finally think clearly. Sometimes when we’re in those hardships, the junk that used to dominate our thoughts goes away, so we can clearly focus on what we need to do and who we need to turn to to get our life turned around. And how did the father know that his son was coming home well because the father was out looking for him searching for him. And that’s what God does for us, He comes and meets us halfway. He runs to us and hugs us and rejoices in us! He says welcome home son, welcome home daughter, I am so glad you came back! This is the heart of God he’s waiting with. Eager anticipation for his lost children to return.

I’m here to encourage you, Get Up. Get up out of that grave, get up!
He’s crazy about you! You are his glory and his joy!

There’s a song by Tauren Wells, called Crazy About You. It’s a good one. It always gets me right in the heart. If you haven’t heard it, I’d encourage you to look it up on YouTube. I have the link below. I have the lyrics below too, if you want to read them.

He’s crazy about you
Didn’t wanna live without you
He traded the stars for a chance at your heart
Just to show you it’s true
He’s crazy about you
Died so you didn’t have to
Tore your failure apart
Now He wears your scars
That’s how much He loves you
He’s never been mad at you
He’s only been madly in love
And it’s never been about what you do
It’s always been about what He’s done
It’s something you just can’t hear enough
Oh, He’s crazy about you
Didn’t wanna live without you
He traded the stars for a chance at your heart
Just to show you it’s true
He’s crazy about you
Died so you didn’t have to (yeah, yeah)
Tore your failure apart
Now He wears your scars
That’s how much He loves you
He’s never held your past against you
He’s only held you close
He’d never give and take it back
You are the one He chose
And the more of Him you know
You’ll know
He’s crazy about you
Didn’t wanna live without you, no
He traded the stars for a chance at your heart
Just to show you it’s true, ooh, oh
He’s crazy about you
Died so you didn’t have to, no
Tore your failure apart
Now He wears your scars
That’s how much He loves you
There’s not a moment you’re not on His mind
There’s no second guessing His sacrifice
He has paid it all ten million times over, and over
There’s not a moment you’re not on His mind
There’s no second guessing His sacrifice
He has paid it all ten million times over
He’s crazy about you (oh oh oh)

https://youtu.be/BjCipDrEYVA?si=270MrlNdFPTDyvCT

Luke Chapter Sixteen
Heed God’s word
The Pharisees put a lot of importance on money and wealth and they really saw it as a sign or a tool to define whether or not you were in God’s favor. If you dress nice and have jewels, etc they thought that you were right with God. And those that had less then they would think that they must have done something wrong to make God mad. This was totally a made up notion. God doesn’t care about money, he cares though that we are responsible with money. God does have an incredible accounting system, by the way. He knows exactly what you’re doing with your money.

What I get from the parable of the shrewd manager is this, instead of investing all of money in our earthly retirements / 401k and and hoarding the money all to ourselves, it’s best to invest in the the eternity of the kingdom. We all know that you can’t take the money with you and you can’t take the possessions that you bought with that money with you into eternity.l, but what you can take with you is your faith and all that you had invested in your life on earth. All the resources that God gave you in this life, you can take that to eternity. That is your investment. Your eternity becomes your investment. Don’t obsess over money because whatever you obsess over soon you will serve it, and if you serve it, it will be your master. And if that is your master, then that is your only master, and that means that God is not your King.

We can’t miss the point of this life. This life is the means in which we invest into eternal life.

There was obviously tension between Jesus and the Pharisees. The Pharisees thought that they were building the kingdom of God and they had a plan. They knew exactly what they were doing. The problem was when Jesus came, He said I am God’s plan. Nothing that the Pharisees were doing is in God’s plan. And the Pharisees rejected the cornerstone- Jesus is the cornerstone (cornerstone is what we would call a building foundation).

Sometimes in the Bible there are stories and sometimes there are parables. And a parable is a story, but it’s a made-up story to communicate a truth. There’s no proper names in parables. A story, however, a story is a real event and proper names are used.

In verse 22 it mentions Abraham’s side and that is otherwise known as paradise. Back then, before Jesus, there wasn’t heaven because Jesus paid the price for our sins on the cross so that heaven would open up. Before that, there was no judgment. You either went to paradise or you went to Hades and the point of the rich man and Lazarus story is that at the end verses 26 through 31, Jesus is prophesizing himself in this scripture. The rich man wasn’t lost because he was rich. That’s not the point of the story. People are lost when they don’t heed God’s word.

Luke Chapter Seventeen
Have faith to forgive
This chapter starts off as a warning to us, disciples‭‭ in Luke‬ ‭17:2‬ ‭NIV‬‬ it says,
[2] It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.

Depending on which version of the Bible you’re reading, the word stumble could also read stumbling blocks, temptation to sin, offenses, trip, impede. And basically we are told to not influence people around us to stumble. Our actions and our behavior can cause others to fall. We have to care. We don’t get a free pass. This is so important.

My daughter is in recovery and when we get together for holidays or special events we will not have any alcohol at the table, because we love her and the last thing we want to do is cause a temptation or a stumpling block for her. We care about her. And this is what Jesus is talking about. We are to have this love and care in our heart for everyone. Nothing makes God more upset and disappointed when we impede the progress of a believer or when we cause someone to sin and stumble in their life.

And it’s very clear in verse 3 that we must forgive. It mentions in the scripture “seven times”. The reason why Jesus said this is because the Jewish law said three times. So Jesus was making a point here to the Pharisees that they must forgive even if they were offended more than three times. We talked a little bit about forgiveness in the previous chapter, but I want to remind you that forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing. We are called as believers to forgive and that forgiveness is ultimately between us and God. You can still forgive someone even if they’re not hear anymore, if they have passed away, or if they moved. Forgiveness is something that you allow in your heart and God knows it because God knows your heart, and when you forgive this act will strengthen your relationship with God.

When you are stuck in unforgiveness it is like dealing with the worst kind of slavery. Its the worst kind, because it’s self-created slavery. We get hurt by people and we think it’s their fault that we weren’t able to forgive them. However we are called to lay it down- to be free of it. Basically it’s about being obedient to God. He calls us to obey. If you’re having a hard time forgiving someone pray to God. Invite God to do at work in your heart to forgive. Surrender your pain. Think of it like this. Forgiving is really not hard. Forgiving is letting go of my right to be angry. Throw your bitterness, throw your anger, throw it out to the sea.
I want to share a story with you about my sister. When my mother passed away some things happened and it caused my sister and I to stop speaking to one another. One day I was driving home from work and God told me that I needed to call my sister, that I needed to forgive her and I’ve learned in my life that obedience is successful when it’s done immediately. As soon as I got home I called my sister and she of course didn’t answer the phone, I didn’t take it personally because she never answers the phone, but I did have to leave a long voicemail. LoL In the voicemail I told her that I forgave her and that I wanted to have a relationship with her. Just because Jesus works in my heart doesn’t mean that he works in everyone’s heart. But here’s the thing when I made that phone call I released my bitterness and my anger, I released it into the sea. We still don’t talk, and I still pray for her. I know God’s working in her heart, because I got a text back today that she’s not going to be coming for Christmas but that is progress and I’m thankful for that.

No matter what, we have to remember that the Kingdom of God is in the heart. The kingdom of God is not a place or a movement. This whole gospel is about the compassion of Jesus and God’s love for us. Your heart, that is what truly matters to the Kingdom.

Luke chapter 18
Like the eyes of a child
The chapter starts off reminding us to not be discouraged and not to give up praying.
This parable of the persistent widow is God telling us that He is exactly the opposite of the judge. His heart is nothing like the judge. We have to remember that God cares for us that he chose us. And He will never get tired of us coming to Him.

The parable of the tax collector-
The Pharisee is basically bragging about what a good person he is compared to others, and the tax collector is the most hated person by everyone, but the tax collector acknowledges his sin. He’s under great conviction and he seeks forgiveness. God has mercy for him. Where we get turned around is not understanding that God doesn’t compare us to other people, God compares us to Himself, in which we would never meet the mark. In the Old testament times they had sacrificial standards, well that was until Jesus came and God gave us a gift. Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice.

There is really so many good things in this chapter. It’s hard to pick my favorite verse, but verse 17 is one I, and maybe others have misinterpreted. The verse says,”Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” And for practically my whole life, I thought that meant infant baptism. There is no mention of infant baptism in the Bible. That is something religion made up. But now I know this to mean to look at the Kingdom as eyes of a child. I think that’s the problem as we get older. We come with bias and pre-programming, and our lifetime of junk and so when someone says have you read the Bible and they’re like no I’m not reading that. But here’s the thing. Forget what you think you know. Read it like a child. Read it as if you’ve never heard anything about it before. Forget all those other religious leaders that made you feel less than. Read it like a brand new book.

I don’t want you to be mistaken thinking that wealthy people cannot have eternal life because that’s not true. There is lots of wealthy people that we know -King David, Abraham etc. They trusted in God, not in their riches and that’s the difference. WE have to always remember that no one is good enough. There is nothing that we can do because no one is good except God alone. Our train wreck of a life doesn’t matter because no one is good except God, effort is nothing because we are not good enough. It clearly states in John 14:6, Jesus said “I am the way and the truth and the life.” John 3:16 has made a way for us to be saved. It is a gift from God. You’re not going to have eternal life because you think you are a good person.

Open the gift and receive it, forget all that you’ve been taught. Forget all of your biases, be like a child on Christmas morning and open your gift. Yesterday at my church six people were saved, six people gave their life to Christ! That is what this book is about, your salvation.

Luke chapter 19

If the rocks cry out in silence, so will I

Jesus is entering Jerusalem for the last time.  We’re getting to the part in the Gospel known as Palm Sunday and then we’re going to have Good Friday and then we’re going to have Easter. And many of us are probably really familiar with this part of the Gospel. 

We know what is coming and a part of my heart is all ready sad because he suffered great pain on my behalf, but we’re not going there yet because we’re on chapter 19 and in chapter 19 we hear about Zacchaeus.  Zacchaeus was a rich text collector and he was rich because tax collectors extorted money from the people. That is why the tax collector was the most hated person in that time period.  The story of Zacchaeus you’re only going to find in Luke’s Gospel and it really is a joy to read. And the reason why I think it’s a joy to read is because in the previous chapter it tells a story of the rich man who didn’t want to repent for his sins, so he walked away sad. However, this rich man gladly welcomes Jesus and gladly repents for his sins. He puts real action behind his words and Jesus tells him in verse 9, “today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.”So, you might think why is this important? Who is the son of Abraham? What does that mean. In Galatians 3:7 this scripture tells us that the son of Abraham is anyone that has a heart of faith and if you trust God and have a heart of faith then you are also a son of Abraham, even if you had no jewish DNA.  This is kind of important for us gentiles It tells us that we are blessed in the eyes of God because we are sons of Abraham. The reminder here is that we need to turn our grief to life. We need to be like Zacchaeus. We need to admit our sin. We need to welcome Jesus gladly into our lives and we need to repent with action. After all, Jesus has a heart of compassion and he was sent here to seek and save the lost.

The parable of the 10 Minas, I’m going to be honest with you on this one. I already admitted that parables are sometimes hard for me. I still feel in my heart that I haven’t captured all of the meaning of this parable.  The audience here are Jews and they believed that Jesus was going to come down to earth as the Messiah and that he was going to right away appear and establish his throne and rule and by defending Israel. However, that’s the second coming, what this was and what the Jews didn’t understand was that God was establishing a spiritual kingdom first. It  really wasn’t the Jews fault because the whole sense of church as we know it today, that was a mystery to them because nowhere in the Old Testament did it talk about church.  So in verse 12, when it mentions that a man of noble birth went to a distant country, that is when the Ascension happens when, Jesus leaves us on earth. So he gives his 10 servants 10 minutes so they each get one mina and his instruction is,”put this money to work until I come back. “. And then when he does come back he calls for the servants first. This is a picture of the believers judgement. The judgment, not of our sin, but the judgment of our rewards. And I believe the message here is take the gifts God give to us and use it for God’s kingdom. Be a faithful servant, and if you do this, then you will be rewarded for your faithfulness.  You can see the servants got rewards based on how successful they were in investing for the kingdom.  

My most favorite verse of all, if you’re still with me on this post lol 😂, is verse 40, “I tell you he replied. If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”  And He says this because he was asked to rebuke the crowd as they were singing praises to him. “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest”.  This was taken directly from Psalm 118, it’s the Messianic Psalm.  Jesus is telling them that even if the people don’t sing that the rocks will still sing because God has ordained it!

If you listen to Christian radio there’s a song by Hillsong and it’s called So will I, I love this song. My daughter loves this song. We’re so hopeful that one day our church will sing this song, a hint to the worship team if they’re reading this post lol 😂. Anyway, there’s a lyric in there about the rocks crying out in silence and every time I hear it, I think of this verse. 

The truth of Jesus cannot be silenced because it was ordained by God, our creator redeemer. Praise God!

Luke Chapter 20
Until death do us part

‭‭Luke‬ ‭20:22‭-‬25‬ ‭NIV‬‬
[22] Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” [23] He saw through their duplicity and said to them, [24] “Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription are on it?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. [25] He said to them, “Then give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

In this chapter, verse 25 is my favorite. Maybe one of the reasons why it’s my favorite is because it comes to my mind very often. It especially came to my mind a lot during the Covid epidemic. And I’m not going to get political at all because that’s not the point of any of this, My point in even bringing it up is because It is very relevant in modern day times. There are many rules of society that I don’t agree with . I didn’t like wearing the mask, but I did it and I didn’t fuss about it because I give to Caesar what is Caesars and I give God what is God’s. I wasn’t about to use my energy and gripe about something, that quite frankly didn’t matter to God. God doesn’t care about earthly things. He doesn’t care about money. He doesn’t care what kind of house you live in, he doesn’t care if you drive a hybrid or a diesel, and he doesn’t care about who you vote for. What he cares about is our heart.

The money belongs to man but we – me, you, us, we are made in God’s image and therefore we belong to Him.

The Sudacces they were a group of liberals who worshiped their own mind and they didn’t believe anything but the first five books of the Old Testament otherwise known as the Pentateuch. Jesus responded to their questions in a genius way as he knew that they would know the scripture of Moses and the burning bush.
‭‭Luke‬ ‭20:34‭-‬38‬ ‭NIV‬‬
[34] Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. [35] But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, [36] and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. [37] But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ [38] He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

Here is the proof! We are alive in Christ. We might leave this earthly life in the body that we have right now, but we are so much alive. In heaven there is nothing called marriage. I found that fascinating and it’s something that I didn’t get the first time I read Luke. But I got it this time. This is why our marriage vows say until death do us part because in heaven there is no marriage. And that’s why when our spouse dies we are able to marry again on this earth. Make no mistake about it. I will see my husband I have no doubt about it and it will be glorious!

Luke Chapter 21
It could happen at any time

Some people say that where we are right now in Luke chapter 21 is 3 days before Jesus goes to the cross.

I love the widows offering. For me the point of this is God measures giving very differently than we do. It’s not so much about the amount we give. It’s the level of sacrifice into which we are giving that matters more. I think it’s human nature that we give more when we have more because it doesn’t affect us so much. You know it’s easier for me to give when I get a bonus at work, but really there’s not much sacrifice in that because the bonus well that was extra money anyway. But when I give when I have no money I feel it. I don’t only feel it in my bank account but I feel it in my heart. When the bank account gets too low, it gives me pause before I start foolishly spending money on things that I don’t need. Things of this world. Things that don’t matter to God.

When we are in that place of sacrifice, that’s when our heart changes.

Then Jesus is going to give prophecy on two things, the destruction of the temple and the end of times. And this is what’s known as a double reference. To some, this might be a little confusing because he’s talking about what happened at AD70 when the Romans burned the city and tore down the temple, and He’s telling us what the end of days will look like. This is when Jesus comes to the earth the second time. In verse 32. He talks about heaven and earth passing away. And that will happen.

In the most simplistic of outlines it looks something like this.
* Commotions, earthquakes, famines pestilence
* Nature will basically be freaking out and we’re going to know that the time is near.
*He will come for His church meaning all of us and we will meet him in the sky otherwise known as the rapture
*a period of 7 years known as the Great tribulation will happen. Those are going to be the worst of times but thankfully we’re going to miss that. At the end of 7 years when all the nations are going to blow up Israel Jesus will come down on the cloud like he tells us in the scripture and he will fight for Israel and he will win. *Then there will be a period of a thousand years that is called the millennial kingdom
*and after that the heaven and the earth will pass away and will both be combined into a new world.
But you know what, I’m not going to get all caught up on that. I’m really only going to listen to verse 34. ‭‭“Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap.

This is our warning. Our warning to be ready. For we don’t know the day or time. Are you ready?

This picture is taken on the Mount of Olives.

Luke Chapter 22
You’re missing the point

There’s a lot that goes on in this chapter. And many of these things you already know about from the Easter season.
I’m going to talk about something that you might not know.
‭‭Luke‬ ‭22:19‭-‬20‬ ‭NIV‬‬
[19] And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” [20] In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

This is what is known as communion. Communion is a simple memorial for believers that can be administered by anyone. Yes I said anyone. It is not a requirement that a priest or ordained minister must administer communion. There is nowhere in the Bible that says that. That is man-made religion. Jesus tells us in the scripture to do this in memory of him. It’s not about us. It’s not about religion and it’s not about fancy rules that says that only certain people who are greater than, or more special than, can only administer. It doesn’t have to be some blessed fancy ceremony and those that think that it does are missing the point. You can do it with your family and you can do it with coke and pizza if you want. So, if your church doesn’t do communion regularly, or for example they don’t do it this Sunday on Christmas Eve, Then you can do it with your family in your own home and you can read the scriptures and you can eat the bread and drink from the cup and do it in memory of Jesus. In memory of him dying for us. Make it a new tradition for your family.

In the beginning when we first started reading the Gospel of Luke, I had mentioned that when Jesus was in the wilderness Satan was trying to trick him And tempt him and it didn’t work. Satan couldn’t touch Jesus and so Satan left him and he said I will come back at an opportune time. Well this is the time, this is the opportune time that Satan came back, and since he couldn’t touch Jesus he got to Jesus through Judas. And the reason why Satan could use Judas is because Judas’s heart was not right before God. In the other Gospel it mentions that Jesus said that Judas did not believe, it also says that Judas was a thief and that Judas is didn’t have a good heart. This is why Satan was able to get to Judas.
You can see here again Satan was able to get to Simon Peter as well. Take a look at this verse which is one of my favorites, ‭‭
[31] “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. [32] But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

As we know Simon did deny Jesus and he did it three times. But Simon did have faith. His failure would not be the last word. God used Peter’s failure and made him to be a pillar. So this is why it’s my favorite verse. Jesus is always going to be praying for our faith to win. And in our life Satan is going to try to sift us as well. But we have to remember our faith because God doesn’t always fix everything for us. The opportunity to fix things in our life is faith and prayer through Jesus Christ.

Luke Chapter 23
Unfortunately, it doesn’t have to be true, It just has to be loud.

This chapter starts off as the Sanhedrin bring Jesus before Pilate. In the end, even though Pilate said Jesus was an innocent man, the Jewish leaders wanted him dead – maybe because of envy, and Pilate succumbed to the wishes of the mob. The mob wanted Pilate to crucify Jesus and let the insurrectous murderer go free. Does it make sense, no. The lesson here is sometimes we’re like Pilate. We cave to the pressure of the mob, we cave under the pressure of the influence of this world. Truth doesn’t prevail, it’s the loudest voice that prevails sometimes.

One of my favorite sections in this chapter is, ‭‭
[34] Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
I like this because it shows once again, the extraordinary compassion of Jesus. Even as he is dying, he is praying and speaking forgiveness for them.

One of the most powerful scriptures in this chapter for me is, ‭[40] But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? [41] We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” [42] Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” [43] Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

There are two ways people can respond to Jesus and that is shown in the two criminals on either side of Jesus. The one criminal is blind to the one person that can save his life, but the other criminal can see Jesus! That one had a fear of God, he sees himself as a sinner that needs mercy, he saw Jesus was different, he recognized Jesus as King and that Jesus could save him. How could he see it, he saw it because of God the Holy Spirit.

Jesus dies.

Photo below is the rock of the skull otherwise known as Golgatha.

Luke Chapter 24
Remember the promise of God
When the woman got to the tomb they wondered where Jesus went and the angel said remember how he told you. It’s hard to remember the word of God in our anxiety, in our frustration, and in our fear. Remember always the promise of God. Life can come in and take hold and you can forget the words of God.

The angel says, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? Jesus was risen, he is alive just like he told you.” The women were going to the tomb believing that Jesus was dead. In our lives, are we living as if Jesus was alive or as if he was dead? When we make decisions in this life, are we making decisions like he was not here? Are we looking to ourselves instead of looking to him. Is your heart at rest knowing that Jesus is with you, that he is alive. Do you fall into faith or fear? If it’s fear, then you were forgetting that Jesus is alive.

My favorite verses are 30-35, because it shows the absolute joy that Jesus brings. [30] When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. [31] Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. [32] They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” [33] They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together [34] and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” [35] Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.
The two men on the road to Emmaus put their hope on their own expectations and they thought that their hope had been dashed. Then Jesus reveals himself as they broke the bread. The two recognized Jesus and what joy they felt in their heart! They got up and they walked 7 mi back to Jerusalem to tell the others, to tell them that Jesus is alive!

Let’s make a promise to each other to live in this joy all the days of our life! To never forget the cross, and never forget God’s promise to us!

This changes everything!

Tetelestai

Peace be with you!