After Jesus had finished his teachings on the beatitudes he returned to Capernaum. There a centurion heard about Jesus and sent elders of the Jews to appeal to him to come and heal one of his servants he highly valued. The elders pleaded with Jesus and presented a case that he was deserving of his request because he loved the nation and had built them their synagogue. Jesus agreed to go with them but before he got there He was met by some of the centurion’s friends who told Him not to trouble himself. The centurion explained why he had sent messengers and not come to Jesus himself. He didn’t consider himself worthy to even have Jesus under his roof. But the centurion fully recognised Jesus’s authority and trusted His ability to heal his servant even from a distance. He was a man of authority and could send the soldiers under him where he pleased. If he told one to go, he went and if he called another to come, he came. If he asked a servant to do something, he did it. He knew that Jesus had the authority to just speak and his servant could be healed.
Jesus marvelled at the man’s faith. He turned to the crowd and told them that even in Israel He had not found such faith. When the centurion’s emissaries returned, they found the servant healed.

Soon after this, some manuscripts say the next day, Jesus went to a town called Nain where He came across a funeral procession. The only son of a widow was being carried out to be buried and was followed by a large crowd. For a widow to lose her only son was extremely tragic. She would have no one to care for her and would likely leave her dependent on public charity if she didn’t have extended family to support her. Jesus had compassion and told her not to weep. Then Jesus exposed Himself to the dead body by touching the bier (a stretcher, they didn’t use closed coffins). This would have exposed Jesus to ceremonial uncleanness (for a day for touching the bier and a week if he touched the corpse). But Jesus didn’t become unclean, instead, the transfer goes the other way (Jesus gives us His righteousness, He makes us clean). Jesus told the man to get up and his life was immediately restored. The man sat up and began to speak and Jesus returned him to his mother. Fear gripped those who were there and they glorified God because they recognised a prophet was among them and God had visited His people. they were on the right track but they needed to recognise Jesus as their Messiah. Both of these miracles point to Jesus being more than a prophet. He healed from a distance and raised someone from the dead only by speaking. Once again, Jesus’ miracles cause a stir and news about Him spread throughout the country.

Seeing doesn’t mean believing. Many people saw Jesus perform the miracles He did and still didn’t believe He was the Messiah, especially the religious leaders. The centurion is an example to us that faith does not require sight. He heard about Jesus and based on what he had heard, he had faith that Jesus had the power to heal without even being there. We have to have the same faith. We know about Jesus because of what we have heard, through the written word, from those who did see. Remember that Luke wrote his letter, recording eyewitness testimonies (Luke 1:1-2) to bolster the faith of Theophilus who had believed based on what he had been taught. How do these stories of what Jesus did encourage your faith?

Jesus taught a fundamental principle that God has built into the universe—you reap what you sow. What we do to others we can expect God to bring about in our own lives. If we judge others, God will judge us more harshly. This is talking about the realm of rewards and blessings, not judgement regarding eternal life and hell. If we forgive others, then God will freely forgive us and we will enjoy a close relationship with Him. If we are generous to others (with God’s wealth He has given us) then He will be more generous with us. We cannot expect to treat others poorly and expect God’s blessing in our lives. Who have you been harsh or unkind or stingy with that you need to make right today?

The blind can’t lead the blind because they’ll both end up in a ditch. The religious leaders who rejected the Messiah would only lead the nation to reject the Messiah as well. If we follow leaders who are not grounded in the truth, we will be led astray from the truth. The disciple or follower will turn out like the one he follows therefore we must be careful to follow Jesus and those who point us to Jesus (1 Cor 11:1). It can be very tempting to point out another’s faults and try to help them deal with their sin (take the speck out of their eye) all while minimising the greater sin in our own lives (the plank in our eye). But we are then the blind, blinded by our plank, trying to lead another. Each of us must focus on our own righteousness before we attempt to help others with their faults. To continue to attempt to deal with other’s sins while ignoring our own is to be a hypocrite. When we have focussed on our own plank, we can help others, but we must still be careful because of our own tendency to sin (Gal 6:1). Have you been too focused on what others are doing wrong (in your eyes) while paying little to no attention to your own failings? What do you need to work on in your life to move you a step closer to Christlikeness today?

Following on from the parable of the blind leading the blind, Jesus provides a standard for evaluating who we should listen to. How do we know that we’re being led by a blind man? By the fruit of his life. You don’t get good fruit from a bad tree. The religious leaders were not producers of good fruit. Ultimately the person who has a treasure of good in their heart will produce good and the one bent on evil, will produce evil. The same is true of everyone. The condition of your heart will be revealed by what comes out of your mouth. If you find yourself saying things that you really shouldn’t be saying, if you find yourself tearing down rather than building up, if you’re arguing rather than seeking peace, whatever it is, you need to go to the source. When your heart is right, then you will produce the fruit of righteousness (Phil 1:9-11; Gal 5:22-24).

Jesus sums up this sermon of beatitudes with a question we should all consider deeply. Why do we call Jesus Lord, Lord and not do what He tells us? If we build our lives by living the way Jesus taught us to, then we build our lives on a foundation of rock and our lives will weather the storms that come, especially that final day when our lives are laid bare before Jesus and He evaluates how we have lived and determines our rewards. But if we hear what Jesus has taught but continue to live as we see fit, we ignore Him at our peril. When the proverbial floodwaters come, we will see that the house of our life was built on sand and it will crumble in great ruin and we will suffer loss. Did your Christianity come to a standstill at belief? Or has it continued with following Jesus and doing all that he taught (John 14:15, 24)?

Jesus stated that there would be those who did not head His words and who would live to maximise this life with no concern for the next. Those are the people who would likely be the ones who persecute believers. But that does not give us license to hate. Instead, Jesus says that those of us who hear Him must love our enemies and do good to those who hate us. Not only that but we should bless them and pray for them. Jesus is not minimising the evil these people may commit or the suffering we might experience at their hands. Jesus tells us not to retaliate against those who harm us or take from us. Again, Jesus is not telling us to remain in an abusive situation. He removed himself from dangerous situations (Luke 4:29-30) and so did Paul (Acts 9:23-25). We can live with an open hand knowing that God will always supply our needs. The overarching theme is an extreme love for others and doing for them what you would like them to do for you. This is about more than specific actions but an underlying attitude. We are quick to judge others by what they do while we expect them to consider our intentions. If you expect others to give you the benefit of the doubt, is that how you treat them?

How are you different if you simply love those who love you? What credit is that to you? Sinners also show love to those who love them. It is not only believers who are able to show deep and genuine love. What should set us apart is our decision to love even those who hate us. The same applies to doing good and lending. It’s easy to help those who reciprocate and lend to those who are guaranteed to return what’s ours. Our reward is great only when we go above and beyond normal human nature. We should not measure ourselves against the conduct and expectations of the world but against our Heavenly Father, the Most High. He is our standard and He has shown incredible kindness and grace to the ungrateful and evil—and that most definitely includes you and me. God loved us so much that even while we were actively hostile against Him, He sent Jesus to die in our place to make a way back to a relationship with Him (Rom 3:23; Rom 5:8; John 3:16). When we show kindness to the ungrateful and love to the unlovable we show the world a glimpse of God and by our love, we make a way for them to come to a knowledge of Him.

To show love to those who don’t love you is not natural and is not easy. It is only through a deep appreciation for God’s love toward us and an abiding relationship with Him and the power of His Holy Spirit inside us that makes it possible. One of the keys to love like this is a complete understanding that you do not deserve God’s love any more than anyone else, no matter who they are or what they have done (1 Tim 1:15). Who do you need to show God’s love to today?

In these days refers to the period in which opposition to Jesus’ ministry was beginning to ramp up. Jesus withdrew to a mountain and prayed. Jesus needed strengthening and so He spent all night in prayer with the Father. When you’re tired and weary and in need of strength, is prayer your first port of call? If Jesus needed much time in prayer in order to fulfil what God had given Him to do, we would be wise to spend much time in prayer as well.

When Jesus came down from His time of prayer, He gathered all His disciples and chose the twelve He called apostles. No doubt a significant part of His time in prayer was beseeching the Father for wisdom on who He should choose to form part of His close circle and the first leaders of the church. The first three apostles mentioned are the three who were part of Jesus’ inner circle of close friends: Peter (and his brother Andrew), James, and John. In the twelve there were two pairs who are separately identified. James, brother of John and James, son of Alphaeus. And Judas the son of James and Judas Iscariot who later became a traitor.

As Jesus came down with his apostles, a great crowd of disciples and other people from Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon gathered to hear His message and to be healed from their diseases and spirits. The crowd all wanted to touch Jesus because he exuded power that healed them all.

Then Jesus began to teach His new message that was the new wine of the new wineskins that stood in contrast to the old wine of the Pharisees. This sermon is similar to the Beatitudes of Matthew 5-7 but with significant enough differences that it is not likely the same message. Jesus probably gave similar messages in different contexts and Matthew and Luke record different events. His message began with four blessings and four woes that paralleled each other. The beatitudes describe man’s fortunate state before God and are expressed as a present state in light of the future. We are blessed now because of what the future holds in God’s promises.

The poor (in spirit, physically because they’ve left everything to follow Jesus) are blessed because they are guaranteed their entrance into the kingdom based on their simple belief in the Messiah and His promise of the kingdom. They staked everything on Jesus’ promise to deliver. Not all poor people are blessed but “you” who are poor. Jesus was speaking to those who had chosen to follow Him.
God’s promised kingdom would alleviate the physical need and pain that Jesus’ followers experienced. All who choose to follow Jesus are guaranteed to suffer persecution (2 Tim 3:12) but can rejoice now because their reward is gathered and stored for them in heaven.

The four woes speak to those who reject the Messiah. Their reward and blessings are temporal and fulfilled now and they will have no future reward. Instead, when their life on earth comes to an end, they will mourn and weep because they have received everything they will receive in this life and face mourning and regret in the next.

Where is your focus in the blessings and reward cycle? Are you looking to “suck the marrow out of life”? Are you trying to be happy, popular, and wealthy? 1 John 2:15-17 warns us not to love this world because it is passing away. Instead we should be storing up our treasures in heaven (Mat 6:19-21). What do you need to do to move from “Woe to you…” to “Blessed are you…”?

Proverbs is a collection of wise sayings that are easily applied to everyday situations. Consider carefully which of the sayings you’ve read today are particularly applicable to you today and in the coming week. What do you need to change or do more of to make use of God’s wisdom in your life?

On one Sabbath day, Jesus was walking through the grain fields with His disciples when they picked and rubbed some through their hands to get to the grain and ate. The law allowed for someone to eat from another’s field as you passed through (Deu 23:25). The Pharisees interpreted the law so strictly that they saw picking as harvesting and rubbing the grain in your hands as threshing which was not allowed on the Sabbath. Because of their viewpoint, they challenged what the disciples were doing as unlawful. Jesus referenced 1 Samuel 21:1-9 where David approached the priests at Nob for bread. The only bread available was the consecrated bread of the Presence that only the priests were allowed to eat. David was allowed to eat because in the interest of survival he was able to be above the law with the priest’s blessing. By pointing to David, Jesus put the Pharisees in a position where they had to choose their position over that of king David. Then Jesus referred to Himself as the Son of Man who is lord of the Sabbath. He declared that He had authority over the Sabbath and what one could righteously do on that day. Jesus placed Himself on the same level as God the Father who gave the Sabbath law in the first place.

On another Sabbath day when Jesus entered a synagogue to teach, the Pharisees and scribes had a trap set. There was a man with a withered hand and they stood by and watched to see if Jesus would heal him on the Sabbath. Their objective was to find a reason to accuse Him. Again Luke tells us that Jesus knew their thoughts. Jesus didn’t shy away from them but brought the man front and centre and then used him to challenge the leaders directly. He asked them a conundrum. Was it lawful on the Sabbath to heal or do harm, to save life or destroy it? The insinuation was that to refuse to do good on the Sabbath is tantamount to doing evil. To leave one to suffer when it is in your power to alleviate that suffering is to do evil to the sufferer (see James 4:17; 1 John 3:17-18). Then looking at the leaders he told the man to stretch out his hand and as he did, it was immediately and completely restored. Jesus did no work on the Sabbath, He simply spoke. In contrast, the Pharisees showed a complete lack of love for God and for their neighbour—the two greatest commands (Mat 22:37-39). The Pharisees didn’t rejoice at the healing of a man’s hand, instead, they were filled with rage and looked for a way to get rid of Jesus.

What is hindering you from doing good when it is in your power to do it. Have you erected some rule-based safeguard that eases your sense of guilt as you walk away from someone in need? How can you show a greater love for others through your generosity?

After this (the healing of the paralytic and the confrontation with the religious leaders) Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi (Matthew, see Matt 9:9-13). Matthew is sitting at his tax collectors booth when Jesus says “Follow me.” He immediately left everything and got up and followed Jesus. This is the correct response to Jesus’ call to discipleship. We must completely forsake our former lives and dedicate everything to following Jesus (Luke 9:57-62).

Matthew immediately gathered his friends in his home and had a feast in Jesus’ honour. While we are called to forsake our former lives in order to follow Jesus, we need not abandon everyone we once knew. Those are the very people we need to introduce to Jesus. Matthew gathered other tax collectors and sinners to come and meet Jesus. the Pharisees took umbrage at this. They thought themselves to be better than others. They considered themselves righteous and would not be seen to mix with sinners. But they didn’t challenge Jesus directly. They asked the disciples, “why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus stepped in and answered that it is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. Jesus didn’t come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. Jesus’ answer was a challenge to the religious leaders. He had just shown, through the healing of the paralytic, that He was able to forgive sinners. But the Pharisees saw no need for forgiveness. Instead, they trusted in their own [self] righteousness.

As believers who have trusted in Jesus for His righteousness, we can still behave like the Pharisees and think we are better than others and look down on “sinners”. We can have similar responses like, “why do you eat with drunkards/adulterers/the poor/blacks/whites/homosexuals/etc?” We would all do well to remember that except for the grace of God we were all sinners in need of a saviour. Our mission is not to form a holy huddle but to go out and reach those who are lost with the good news of salvation. We can only reach sinners by hanging out with sinners.

The religious leaders questioned Jesus about the lack of the disciples’ fasting. The Pharisees’ disciples fasted and so did those of John the Baptist, but Jesus’ disciples were happily eating and drinking. The insinuation was that they were righteous but Jesus’ disciples were not. Jesus explained that their old way of doing things was incompatible with His new way. The old covenant was being replaced with the new covenant. Jesus used three examples. First wedding guests don’t fast when the bridegroom is with them because it is a joyous occasion. The time would come when Jesus would ascend to heaven and then fasting would return. Jesus also used two parables. It doesn’t make sense to tear a piece of fabric from a new item of clothing in order to mend an old item of clothing. If you do that, you destroy the new item of clothing and the patch will not match the old item of clothing. Both items of clothing have lost something. It also doesn’t make sense to put new wine into old wineskins. The new wine will burst the old wineskins because they have lost their elasticity, the new wine will spill and the wineskins will be destroyed. Again you’re left with no wine and no wineskins. New wine must go into new wineskins.
It is not possible to mix the legalism of the Pharisees with the New Covenant based on grace. The Pharisees were inflexible in their position and had built a legalistic system that was unable to accept Jesus.

The Pharisees refused to even try the new way because they were adamant that their old way was better.
Legalism can seem attractive because its rules provide a grid with which to judge others and measure ourselves against them. It also gives us boxes we can tick off and prove that we are “righteous” through our actions but without any necessary heart change. But legalism is incompatible with the free grace of Jesus. Don’t try to mix the two. What do you need to do to move from legalism to grace?

As Jesus continued to minister in other cities (Luke 4:43), He came across an outcast of society, a man with leprosy. The man fell on his face and begged Jesus acknowledging His ability to heal but submitting fully to His will to heal, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” This is how we all should pray. We must pray with the faith that God can do anything but fully submitted to His will with regocnition that He has the sovereign right to choose. We must also pray with the faith that He will always choose what’s best for us and for His glory. In this instance Jesus was willing. As a leper, the man was the epitome of uncleanness. Anyone who touched him would become unclean and need to go through ceremonial cleansing before they could be considered clean again. Jesus reached out and touched him and the opposite occurred, instead of Jesus becoming unclean, the leper became clean. Jesus could clean the man’s outward uncleanness.
Jesus told him not to tell anyone but to go immediately and present himself to the priest and follow the procedure outlined in the law (Lev 14:1-32). While the law spelled out what needed to be done if someone was cleansed from leprosy, it didn’t happen very often. The Old Testament only records two instances (Miriam and Naaman). When the leper presented himself to the priest, it would be a strong testimony to the religious leaders that something significant was happening in Israel.
Jesus’s fame continued to spread and large crowds gathered to listen to him and to be healed of their various afflictions. Jesus regularly withdrew to quiet places to pray. If Jesus needed quiet time in prayer to continue His work effectively, how much more do we?

Soon after that, Jesus was in a house teaching and some of the religious leaders had travelled from the surrounding towns, including some from Jerusalem, to see what all the fuss was about. Some men brought a friend of theirs who was paralysed to be healed by Jesus. Because of the crowds, they couldn’t get to Jesus so they went up onto the roof and let him down through the tiles—what great determination to help their friend. When Jesus saw their faith He told the man, “your sins are forgiven.” Note that Jesus responded to the faith of the friends as well as the paralysed man. Let this be an encouragement as we pray for our friends and family with faith. The religious leaders respond with incredulous indignation. How can a man pronounce someone’s sins are forgiven? Wasn’t this blasphemy? Only God can forgive someone’s sins. Jesus knew what they were thinking (He didn’t need to hear them). Jesus points out that their objections are fair. If a man says, “your sins are forgiven” how can it be trusted? There is no way to prove that someone’s sins are forgiven. So He points out that it’s equally easy to say “Rise and walk” but it will be plainly obvious to all if He doesn’t have the power to heal. The man got up immediately, completely healed, picked up the bed his friends had carried him on and walked home glorifying God. The man’s outward healing proved Jesus was God and had the authority to heal him inwardly. Jesus could clean the man’s inward uncleanness.
The response of all (but unfortunately not the religious leaders as we see later) is that they glorified God and were awestruck and exclaimed that hey had seen extraordinary things that day.

May you be encouraged to pray both with submission to God’s will like the leper but also with persistence like the paralysed man’s friends.

Luke moves his story to some time later. Jesus was at the Lake of Gennesaret (the Sea of Galilee) and the crowds were pressing around Him to hear what He taught. He saw two boats by the lake but the fishermen had finished for the day and were busy washing their nets. Jesus got into Simon’s boat and asked him to put it out to water a little so He could continue teaching without all the crowding.

When Jesus had finished teaching, He told Peter to head out to deeper waters and let down their nets for a catch. Simon, an experienced fisherman, responded that he didn’t think they’d catch anything because they had already worked all night without success. But, he agreed to do what Jesus asked. The result, they caught more fish than their nets or two boats could handle. Their nets began to break and after calling in reinforcements from James and John, both boats began to sink from all the fish they had loaded. Simon’s response was to recognise his sinfulness in the presence of the powerful holiness of the Lord. All the fisherman were completely astonished at the catch they had brought in. Jesus turned to Simon and told him not to be afraid because He had a job for him. Instead of catching fish for food, he was now going to catch men for the Messiah. After bringing their boats to shore, they left everything and followed Jesus. How could they walk away from everything so easily? Because Jesus had just shown them that He was more than able to provide for their every need.

Peter had doubts about doing what Jesus said. His experience told him that trying to fish was going to be futile—but it wasn’t. Is there something God is calling you to do that you know you should be doing but you have doubts about whether it will work or not? Are you willing to step forward in faith? Are you willing to give up everything and follow Him?