I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me
and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do
nothing. – John 15:5
Luke 4:14-30
Pray
for God to speak to you through the reading of His word.
Read
the passage.
-
How
Grace Comes to Us
o
When
Jesus stood up in the synagogue and read from Isaiah 61, he was making a
statement about his identity, about who he was.
He tells them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
o
How
does Jesus proclaim good news to the poor?
o
How
does Jesus proclaim liberty to those who are captives?
o
How
does he give sight to the blind?
o
How
does he set free the oppressed?
o
Maybe
a better question to ask is, what impoverishes us? What holds us captive? What blinds us? What oppresses us?
-
How
Grace Goes too Far (Or so we sometimes think)
o
So
long as Jesus speaks of grace for them, his audience is receptive. But when he makes it clear that grace is also
for others, even those they deem to be their enemies, they become quite angry
and even violent.
o
For
the Jews that Jesus was speaking to it was foreigners who were deemed unworthy
of grace. Who is it that we consider
unworthy of grace?
o
What
groups of people, or what types of sinners do we often consider “irredeemable?”
-
More
Alike than Different
o
When
we seek to deny grace to others, it is usually because we are focused on our
difference. However, the important
things is that we are alike in some very significant ways. First of all, we are all made in the image of
God, even if we have marred that image with our sin. Second, we are all in need of God’s grace, we
have all “fallen short of the glory of God.”
Praise God for grace that came
among us in the form of Jesus Christ.
Pray for a compassionate heart,
that sees others as God sees them.
Pray for the ability to focus on
our shared need for grace, rather
than the differing reasons why we need that grace.
Consider this verses:
“But now in Christ
Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in
his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments
expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place
of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body
through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.” (Ephesians 2:13-16 ESV)
No comments:
Post a Comment