Tag Archives: christianity

⁵⁷ As they were walking along, someone said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.”

⁵⁸ But Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head.”

⁵⁹ He said to another person, “Come, follow me.”

The man agreed, but he said, “Lord, first let me return home and bury my father.”

⁶⁰ But Jesus told him, “Let the spiritually dead bury their own dead! Your duty is to go and preach about the Kingdom of God.”

⁶¹ Another said, “Yes, Lord, I will follow you, but first let me say good-bye to my family.”

⁶² But Jesus told him, “Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.”

Luke 9:57-62

Dear God, Luke is painting an interesting picture of Jesus. He is going out of his way to show us that Jesus wasn’t just building a movement driven by crowd size. He wasn’t looking for strength in numbers. He wasn’t looking for majority rule or power. He was seemingly trying to capture the whole heart of those who wanted to follow him. I’ll confess that I really don’t understand the last two except that maybe you knew something about their situations that seemed to make these excuses and not legitimate requests. I mean, you chastised the Pharisees at one point for keeping people from caring for their parents (Mark 7:9-13).

There were several times when it seems like you/Jesus were intentionally thinning the herd of who was following you. You were not only intentionally making the gate narrower, but you were then adding a filter to the gate to limit those who could go in. I think you were raising the standard and saying, “I want quality over quantity. I want people who are all in with me.”

Father, I am as all-in with you as I know to be. But you know my heart is heavy about some work challenges this morning. This isn’t necessarily going along with this passage, but I need your help this morning. I need you to speak to me, Holy Spirit. I need your guidance. I need your wisdom. I need to somehow maneuver through this situation in a loving, constructive way where everyone wins. But I don’t know how to do it on my own. I need you. I need divine inspiration. Oh, and let me stop and thank you for something that I think I took for granted last night. I was at an event where someone said some very nice things about me and the work that I do to a group of people, and they told me later that they just felt inspired by you to say them publicly. So maybe I should actually believe her, believe you were encouraging me last night even though I didn’t have ears to hear it, and now as I sit here and try to lean into you, you are reminding me of it and just asking me to lean into you more. So I trust you, Lord. I trust you, my Triune God. Thank you for being in my life.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

While everyone was marveling at everything he was doing, Jesus said to his disciples, ⁴⁴ “Listen to me and remember what I say. The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of his enemies.” ⁴⁵ But they didn’t know what he meant. Its significance was hidden from them, so they couldn’t understand it, and they were afraid to ask him about it.

Luke 9:43b-45

Dear God, I’ve heard of the phrase “willful ignorance,” but it’s interesting that you were willfully keeping the disciples ignorant.

I’m trying to set the scene in my mind. In this chapter alone we’ve had:

• Jesus sending out the 12.
• Herod’s confusion.
• Jesus receiving the 12 back and then promising them rest.
• Jesus changing course and feeding the 5,000.
• Jesus, Peter, and “who do you say that I am?”
• Jesus predicting his death #1 (verse 22).
• Jesus challenging the crowd to take up their cross.
• The Transfiguration.
• Healing the demon-possessed boy.

And now we get betrayal/death prediction #2 in verse 44. So the disciples are trying to make sense of a lot of things. Being so powerful when they were sent out. The miracle of feeding 5,000 with food left over. Jesus predicting his death. The transfiguration. One more healing. And then this thing about being betrayed.

I can’t tell you how much better these stories of the disciples being inadequate make me feel. I feel so ignorant and foolish sometimes. I feel overwhelmed by my situation. I feel like I am missing opportunities or things I should know or understand. I feel like I’m presented with situations and don’t know the right thing to say or do. I feel all of that. But stories like this help me to appreciate how hard it can be to know and understand what’s going on. And there are many times when, in the moment, I remember to pray to you while I’m in the midst of a struggle or difficult situation, asking you to give me the right words to say or things to do.

Father, I’m just going to trust you. Work through me. Love through me. Live through me. And Holy Spirit, please keep me from straying too far off the path. “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.” But in this case, it’s not even me wandering. It’s just me not seeing or perceiving. It brings me back to this passage from Isaiah 6:

⁹ And he said, “Yes, go, and say to this people,

‘Listen carefully, but do not understand.
    Watch closely, but learn nothing.’
¹⁰ Harden the hearts of these people.
    Plug their ears and shut their eyes.
That way, they will not see with their eyes,
    nor hear with their ears,
nor understand with their hearts
    and turn to me for healing.”

Please don’t harden my heart, plug my ears, or shut my eyes. If you’re doing it to protect me or others from me, then fine. Isolate me and keep me as ignorant as you want. But I pray that my heart will be such that when you are keeping me ignorant it is because my ignorant heart would make a mistake out of it’s pursuit of you and not because you simply can’t trust me to do the right thing. Holy Spirit, help me to do the right thing.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

¹⁶ “No one lights a lamp and then covers it with a bowl or hides it under a bed. A lamp is placed on a stand, where its light can be seen by all who enter the house. ¹⁷ For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all.

¹⁸ “So pay attention to how you hear. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what they think they understand will be taken away from them.”

Luke 8:16-18

Dear God, this is another parable/metaphor from Jesus that gets removed from its context when we read it. It’s easy to forget that it is linked to the parable of the Sower. So the way I read this in that context is that the person who puts the lap on the stand is the same as the one who liberally spreads seeds on the ground. She or he puts it out there for everyone to see.

Verse 17 is interesting. Secrets are so debilitating, especially if they carry shame with them. They can bog us down and just be a cloud that follows us. And that inhibits our ability to put our lamp on a stand. How can we proudly show the world our lives in you when we are hiding pieces of ourselves in shame?

I was talking with a relative who has been going through a trial about how you can take the pain they’ve been through and use it to bless others. You have given them a ministry now they’d have never had before. But they would never have that ministry if they were ashamed of the trial they’ve been through and just kept it a secret. No, even our weaknesss are important to share with others.

Father, help me to listen to Jesus’s teaching. Help me to understand. Help me to humbly share my life with others for their benefit and your glory. Help me to love my neighbor through my own humility. Help me to see beyond the surface of what people display, and see them with your eyes. I give you all praise, glory, and honor, Jesus, for what you have done for me.

I pray this in the name of Jesus and with the Holy Spirit,

Amen