Luke and the Lost

The little boy sat at the Sunday School table surrounded by other Kindergarten kids. He was drawing and coloring feverishly, focused on his masterpiece. The teacher bent over to see what he was drawing. “Tell me about your picture,” she said. “I’m drawing a picture of God!” he said excitedly. The teacher replied, “But nobody knows what God looks like.” The little boy stopped and thought for a bit and then said, “Well, they will when I get finished!”

I think of that familiar story as we study the next passage where Jesus, our Master Storyteller, is trying to get us to use all that He has created within us to really SEE what He is talking about. He does it eloquently and perfectly with words. I imagine Jesus using jesters and nearby “props” to help the people to picture the Kingdom of Heaven…God’s Kingdom…in us. His brief life was the perfect example, however.

Luke 13, The Message
The Way to God
18-19 Then he said, “How can I picture God’s kingdom for you? What kind of story can I use? It’s like a pine nut that a man plants in his front yard. It grows into a huge pine tree with thick branches, and eagles build nests in it.”

20-21 He tried again. “How can I picture God’s kingdom? It’s like yeast that a woman works into enough dough for three loaves of bread—and waits while the dough rises.”

22 He went on teaching from town to village, village to town, but keeping on a steady course toward Jerusalem.

23-25 A bystander said, “Master, will only a few be saved?”

He said, “Whether few or many is none of your business. Put your mind on your life with God. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires your total attention. A lot of you are going to assume that you’ll sit down to God’s salvation banquet just because you’ve been hanging around the neighborhood all your lives. Well, one day you’re going to be banging on the door, wanting to get in, but you’ll find the door locked and the Master saying, ‘Sorry, you’re not on my guest list.’

26-27 “You’ll protest, ‘But we’ve known you all our lives!’ only to be interrupted with his abrupt, ‘Your kind of knowing can hardly be called knowing. You don’t know the first thing about me.’

28-30 “That’s when you’ll find yourselves out in the cold, strangers to grace. You’ll watch Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets march into God’s kingdom. You’ll watch outsiders stream in from east, west, north, and south and sit down at the table of God’s kingdom. And all the time you’ll be outside looking in—and wondering what happened. This is the Great Reversal: the last in line put at the head of the line, and the so-called first ending up last.”

THE POINT OF FOCUS: ““Whether few or many is none of your business. Put your mind on your life with God. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires your total attention.”

HOW? Let God’s Kingdom thinking permeate our hearts so that like the yeast, it rises up within us, guiding us to live our lives more and more like Jesus, the Bread of Life eternal.

We grow from the seed planted in us by those before us, then we open the doors of our enlarged hearts, giving God Kingdom ways the control to enlarge HIS territory of our minds, reaching to core of our souls with unconditional love for Him and for others.

Yes, PICTURE GOD’S KINGDOM, as an active, undying, eternal force working in us and through us to show others what God’s Kingdom is like by the lives we live each day. We won’t quit drawing our picture of God! We will show others what He looks like by our lives!

Don’t know what God looks like? Maybe you will when I get finished! Still working on it…

Dear Heavenly Father, You are amazing, Your Word is gloriously about You and Your Kingdom residing in us IF we allow You to have control. I say Yes, Lord. Take my life and use it for Your glory, honor and praise. Use it to enlarge Your Kingdom in all of us.
In Jesus Name, By His Power living in us, Amen. I believe.