December 26, 2024
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Reading along with us in our Lenten readings from “The Life of Jesus”? Here’s today’s reading:
Advent 2024 – Day 26 in the Book: “The Life of Jesus“
The Year of Growing Opposition
Read Sections 4.41 through 4.44 (pages 103-107)
This book is an account of Jesus’ life and teachings told through in chronological order from the four Gospels to create one continuous story.
*If you do not have a copy of the book please contact the church at (401)667-0775 and we can get you a copy.
The good Samaritan just teaches us it does not matter about race, creed or social background who is in need it should always be love that makes us act out to a person in need. Mary And Martha: just a great lesson in are we trying to do so much for Jesus and pleasing others that we’re actually neglecting Jesus not spending any time with him, our service becomes self-serving. Jesus teaching us to pray. Always to put praising God first to put us in the right frame of mind of the throne we are going before. Too often our prayers become like a shopping list instead of a conversation. And to forgive those that have wronged us to remember the importance that God has forgiven us.
Day 26
Advent Day 26
The Life of Jesus 4.38 – 4.44
The good Samaritan parable. The Priest and Levite, both men who would have been considered set apart as holy in the Israelite community, both ignored the man who was beaten bloody and dying. Likely they would have been twisting the Levitical law of not touching a dead body to their advantage to justify not having to intervene to help someone.
But a Samaritan, a person considered unclean by the Israelite community, had compassion on the man, tended to his wounds, and paid for his housing until he got better.
Besides loving God and His commandments, we are also commanded to love everyone around us who is in need.
We should not be caught up in the hustle and bustle of life and remember to take time to rest, sit at Jesus’s feet, and learn from him.
The right way to pray is to focus on Praise, Provision, Pardon, and Protection. And we should pray earnestly and consistently.
So much of the law can be summarized as love God with every aspect of your being and loving your neighbor as yourself. And if that second part is a culmination of many laws, our neighbor can’t be just the people living next-door, but really how we would act toward anyone we come across. And loving God is not just busying ourselves with service, but spending time with God as well. And what a great model Jesus gives us for prayer which is a primary vehicle we have to spend time with God.. In our prayers there certainly needs to be recognition of who God is and the fact that He has a plan that ultimately our prayers should be in line with. But God also recognizes our physical needs and spiritual ones too. And when we pray we should continue to ask, seek and knock. And the Jewish leaders just didn’t get it and they disrupted and criticized the ministry of Jesus of a consistent basis. Here Jesus let’s them have it and basically lays out all the wrong they have and are doing both as a way to expose them to the truth and also to warn those who would be influenced by them or follow in the same pattern.
It struck me where it says the Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. I had to verify it. The Father gives good gifts. The Holy Spirit is an excellent gift!
”“So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”“
Luke 11:9-13 NKJV