Luke – Doors Wide Open!
Traveling is not really all that glamorous. Can I get an amen from seasoned travelers? I used to travel a lot in a former position as a trainer to churches across the nation and around the world. I loved preparing with God, asking for what He wanted to say to His people. I loved leaving to go there, full of anticipation for what God would do once we gathered to learn. I loved being there with people who wanted to learn and grow in their faith and teaching. I did not love getting there and returning. The journey wasn’t always easy.
Leaders and pastors who would set up these training events for their churches would give me directions for getting to their remote (to me) places of worship. If these men and women grew up in the area, their directions would sometimes be given with outdated street names that changed over the years to other names. That was never helpful. This was before GPS with a voice telling me every turn. If I was alone, and many times I was, I would have to drive and follow written directions at the same time. It is a good thing I had many prayer warriors asking God for my safe travel! I will admit I am directionally challenged so I would pray before leaving, asking God to show me every important sign along the way so I wouldn’t get lost. I had a tight schedule to keep so I allowed time for lostness. Crazy, right? It wasn’t God’s fault, I would just get distracted by traffic, people and others things. So, sometimes I did get lost.
Getting lost is frightening. There is no worse feeling than knowing your are lost in a place you have never been. As a female who has an active imagination it was especially disconcerting. After praying in my “lost-ness”, I would eventually see the signs I had missed and get back to where I needed to be. Peace, joy and gratitude for finding the right way was expressed in shouts of praise to God!
Luke 11, New Living TranslationThe Sign of Jonah
29 As the crowd pressed in on Jesus, he said, “This evil generation keeps asking me to show them a miraculous sign. But the only sign I will give them is the sign of Jonah. 30 What happened to him was a sign to the people of Nineveh that God had sent him. What happens to the Son of Man will be a sign to these people that he was sent by God.
31 “The queen of Sheba will stand up against this generation on judgment day and condemn it, for she came from a distant land to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Now someone greater than Solomon is here—but you refuse to listen. 32 The people of Nineveh will also stand up against this generation on judgment day and condemn it, for they repented of their sins at the preaching of Jonah. Now someone greater than Jonah is here—but you refuse to repent.
Receiving the Light
33 “No one lights a lamp and then hides it or puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where its light can be seen by all who enter the house.
34 “Your eye is like a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is filled with light. But when it is unhealthy, your body is filled with darkness. 35 Make sure that the light you think you have is not actually darkness. 36 If you are filled with light, with no dark corners, then your whole life will be radiant, as though a floodlight were filling you with light.”
ASK FOR DIRECTION, NOT MIRACLES!
Sometimes in our lostness in life we want to see signs of proof and miracles of God, but that is a dangerous request. It is almost insulting to God, especially when He is right in front of us. He has been there all the time, waiting for us to open our hearts, minds and souls ask for directions back to Him. So, stop and ask for direction, not miracles.
Yes, God is a way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper and light in the darkness as we sang last Sunday in worship, but we don’t need a “sign” to find Him. We just need to follow the Light and say, “YES, Lord, I’m listening”. “Show me your direction by your Light.” “Show me the path to take and Light the way.” “God, you are, indeed, the Light of Life, the Light the floods my soul, the Light that pierces all the dark places and makes me whole.” “Your Light reflects from lives fully yielded to God completely! Be the Light of my life, Lord!”
Dear Heavenly Father,You are still here. You are still willing to show the way by Your Light of Love. You still forgive and restore. You are God and we are not. Thank you for helping us find our way back to You. We pray for those around us who have not found you. May your Light reflecting from us be enough to help others find you and be drawn to you. Help us all to grow, bearing the fruits of Your Holy Spirit, by Your Light! I love you, Lord with all my heart, mind and soul. Help me to love others like you love me.
In Jesus Name, Amen
And I’m singing…Way Maker
You are here
Moving in our midst
I worship you
I worship you
You are here
Working in this place
I worship you
I worship you
Way maker
Miracle worker
Promise keeper
Light in the darkness
My God
That is who you are
Way maker
Miracle worker
Promise keeper
Light in the darkness
My God
That is who you are
You are here
Touching every heart
I worship you
I worship you
You are here
Healing every heart
I worship you
I worship you
You are here
Turning lives around
I worship you
I worship you
You are here
Mending every heart
I worship you
I worship you
Way maker
Miracle worker
Promise keeper
Light in the darkness
That is who you are…
23 “Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me.
SO HOW MUST WE RESPOND?
“Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him, 6 ‘A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.’ 7 And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed. I can’t help you.’ 8 But I tell you this—though he won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence.
9 “And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
“And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” 
We can all easily get caught up in the task, the largeness of the project, and the details of our responsibilities to whatever has been assigned to us to do. In the busyness we can, just as easily, forget the big picture, forget the why and for whom we are doing what we are doing. At work, if we have the Martha syndrome, we push beyond our limits to please our bosses and those around us. Bosses in the work place love people like Martha who make them look good. But Martha people can get carried away, over stressed and overworked easily, losing sight of the outcome or the why. There is a balance that must be struck in our lives.
What Jesus is really saying to Martha’s retort of wanting Mary to help her, “Martha, chips and dip with do…come and listen, be with me like Mary is doing.” Jesus didn’t ask for a huge, fancy meal. That was Martha’s idea. Jesus still does not ask for gargantuan ministry explosions today. He wants simplicity from us so we see Him for who He really is…our Savior and our Lord. He wants us to scale down the details that might take our attention from Him (“the devil is in the details”) so our focus on Him is not lost in the largeness of the project. He wants us to be with Him, learn from him and grow in His love, gentleness, kindness, while developing the rest of His characteristics called the fruits of His Holy Spirit. (Galatians 5)
When did you put the details first and the reason for doing it last? How did it feel when the task was over?
38 As Jesus and the disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem, they came to a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 Her sister, Mary, sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to what he taught. 40 But Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, “Lord, doesn’t it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me.”
25 One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”
33 “Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. 34 Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. 35 The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’
36 “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked.
How much do you think God loves you?
When we cannot “see” God and Jesus in the flesh, we, as believers, are consumed by His Holy Spirit living in us. His Holy Spirit lovingly disciplines, comforts, guides our thoughts, corrects us, helps heal our brokenness and shows us God’s Truth, God’s Ways to live, and gives us assurance that Jesus saved and indeed redeemed us as His own. God’s Holy Spirit in us help us to “see” what others seem to miss in this life, His incredible, reckless, unconditional, never ending love! 
Jesus is thankful for how God disperses Truth to His people with this childlike faith with total dependence on God, the Father. “Blessed are those who ‘see’ and ‘hear’ what God is saying”, revealing it to the “childlike” in faith. This kind of faith leads to hearing and seeing.
22 “My Father has entrusted everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
I must humble myself, submit to the will of the Father, so that I can seriously see and hear His Truth for my life. Agree?
When sent by God to do His work for His glory, instructions must be given by the One who has a direct line of communication to God. Jesus is sent by God. God tells Jesus what to do and what to say. Then Jesus tells others what God wants done. 
Jesus never did his ministry of healing, seeking the lost while declaring God’s Kingdom come alone, there were always others with him. There are two things He did alone, however. One was to pray to His Father. When He prayed, He was asking God for his next direction as well as praying for his disciples (which included followers to come like you and me!) The only other task He did alone was to be the perfect sacrifice for our sin on the cross. No one else could have done that. No one on earth is perfect. Only Jesus could have completed the mission to save us by laying down is life for ours. That is why only In Jesus Name, by His power working in us, His Spirit living in us who believe, can anything of significance and value be done for God’s Kingdom and for His glory.
The Lord now chose seventy-two other disciples and sent them ahead in pairs to all the towns and places he planned to visit. 2 These were his instructions to them: “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields. 
3 Now go, and remember that I am sending you out as lambs among wolves. 4 Don’t take any money with you, nor a traveler’s bag, nor an extra pair of sandals. And don’t stop to greet anyone on the road.
16 Then he said to the disciples, “Anyone who accepts your message is also accepting me. And anyone who rejects you is rejecting me. And anyone who rejects me is rejecting God, who sent me.”
It would require discipline and faith for them to do the job (Luke 10:4–8). There was an urgency about the work, and the Lord did not want them to be overburdened with extra supplies or be delayed on the road by elaborate Eastern greetings.
It is important to note that the special power that Jesus gave to His apostles (Luke 9:1) and to the Seventy is not ours to claim today. These two preaching missions were very special ministries, and God did not promise to duplicate them in our age. Our Lord’s commission to us emphasizes the proclamation of the message, not the performing of miracles (Matt. 28:19–20; Luke 24:46–49). 
Consider this. Products are marketed in ways to command a “following”. Following is used as a noun to describe a group of supporters and dedicated admirers. “New on the market” products need a world-wide following to thrive and continue. A successful business person knows that marketing should command the greater part of the budget because without a “following”, it will not survive for long. A following is a group of people who will religiously buy the product without considering any other alternatives.
Jesus invites us to His work when we are willing to follow, to leave the world behind us, with His cross before us. He wants us to know what we are in for as we leave what the world has to offer, to follow Him. There is a cost. We will leave those who do not follow Jesus. We leave what is comfortable. We leave what others want us to be and do. But there is also the reward of eternal peace and unspeakable joy as we put our complete focus, faith, trust and attention on Him. It a peace that the world will never be able to deliver. It is an eternal joy, coupled with hope, that brings us through all the storms of life. It is Jesus. Only Jesus. It is knowing where we are going and to whom will greet us when you get there. Jesus. Only Jesus.
The Cost of Following Jesus
Dear Heavenly Father, Lord and Savior,
Think of a time when God got your attention. Think of the power used to do something you could not do by yourself. What you thought impossible God made possible. Reverence, amazement, wonder and even fear gripped you with awe.
37 The next day, after they had come down the mountain, a large crowd met Jesus. 38 A man in the crowd called out to him, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, my only child. 39 An evil spirit keeps seizing him, making him scream. It throws him into convulsions so that he foams at the mouth. It batters him and hardly ever leaves him alone. 40 I begged your disciples to cast out the spirit, but they couldn’t do it.”
Dear Heavenly Father,
In a classroom of students there will always be talking until the teacher of the group calls them to attention. “Stop talking and listen!” That usually means to be quiet and turn all your attention to the teacher for your next instruction or direction. Do all the students hear the call? Do all stop and listen? 
Not even Jesus could hold the attention of his students for long. He was constantly telling them things that were hard to understand and showing them what they had never experienced before meeting and following Him as their Master Teacher. Peter had just declared, “You are the Messiah, sent from God.” But even Peter, without thinking, which is the way most students who must get a word in, speaks when he should be listening. 
God steps in as the Supreme Authority. Peter, along with the rest of his small class, is told quickly and dramatically by God, the Father, “This is my Son, my Chosen One. Listen to him.” In other words, Peter, stop talking. Watch and listen to Jesus. Do what He does for He is part of me. He is my Son! God shows Peter that it’s not about building monuments, as in the past, it is about building your life on His Son. Listen to Him!
21 Jesus warned his disciples not to tell anyone who he was. 22 “The Son of Man must suffer many terrible things,” he said. “He will be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He will be killed, but on the third day he will be raised from the dead.”
The Transfiguration
As far as the gospel record is concerned, the Transfiguration was the only occasion during Christ’s earthly ministry when He revealed the glory of His person. Luke did not use the word transfigure, but he described the same scene (Matt. 17:2; Mark 9:2). The word means “a change in appearance that comes from within,” and it gives us the English word metamorphosis. 
There is also a practical lesson here, for we can have a spiritual “transfiguration” experience each day as we walk with the Lord. Romans 12:1–2 and 2 Corinthians 3:18 tell us how. 
SO LISTEN TO HIM!
HOLY PAUSE…
