March 15, 2023
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in our Lenten readings from “The Life of Jesus”? Here’s today’s reading:
Day 5 in the Book: “The Life of Jesus“
The Year of Growing Opposition
Read Sections 4.49 through 4.52 (pages 109-112)
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.
No one would give any thought to caring for their child on the Sabbath or even their animals….how much more does God care for us. For Jesus to heal on the Sabbath was not work to Him just caring for His sheep. Caring for the ones who know His voice.
He challenged the Pharisees that they still didn’t know who He was because they couldn’t hear His voice, they did not want to see what was right in front of them because they were so stubborn. You watched the things He did and still you wished to stone Him. We can become that blind to the truth when it challenges what we think we know or what we feel we need to control instead of true trust and surrender to the One who knows all.
Amen, Kelly!
Lent 2023 Day 4
Day 5
4.49-4.52
Day 5 4:49-4:52
Again Jesus heals on the Sabbath. This time it is because he was sought out by a sick woman. This was inside a synagogue when he was teaching. She had a evil spirit inside her. It had made her a cripple for 18 years. She couldn`t stand up straight. Jesus said Woman you have been made free. And then He laid his hands on her and she was healed. She immediately starting praising God. The synagogue leader was very angry that the law was broken. Jesus pointed out to him and others that they were hypocrites. Then He told them why. Often in the gospels it is brought out that Jesus often times healed on the Sabbath. I think it was to show that He is Lord of the Sabbath. He said that He is and that man was not made for the Sabbath but the Sabbath was made for man. How often He had to keep teaching people that you don`t get to God through legalism but faith in God alone without works. Latter when Jesus was in a temple area Jewish leaders gathered around Jesus with questions even through they knew what He would say. Jesus said I told you already but you do not believe, because you are not my sheep. Then he continued to say my sheep hear my voice and follow me. I will give them eternal life and no one can take them out of my hand. We can`t lose our salvation once we are His. And of course they were very angry at Him and wanted to stone him. Latter as Jesus was teaching in every town and village he taught that the door to Heaven is narrow. That very few will enter it. This applies to us today in that many might serve Jesus in someway but might not be truly saved. Only God knows the heart of man. Some of these people might even believed they are saved . This is why it is important to be able to point to a time in our life when we made this decision. Mine was when I prayed with a brother in the Lord inside a library located inside the Community of Rhode Island on the 3rd Thursday of September of 1973. This is my spiritual birthday. Praise God.
How can they watch the miracles and they’re only concerned is what day it is! Hard to believe. Unbelief can be that strong and blind. The narrow road is always a hard truth to read. But it’s true. So many believe in another way besides the cross. They think it’s narrow. But with Gods hands stretch out. It’s wide enough for all of mankind
Lent Day 5
If the Pharisees don’t believe when Jesus says he is God’s Son, they should believe when he does the miracles that prove he is God’s Son. For Jesus only does what the Father does. Problem was, he didn’t fit their interpretation of who the Messiah was and he spoke against their wrongdoings so their hearts were hardened to the truth.
Day 5
Jesus is the gate and the door. John 10.
He is the way, truth and life….no one comes to the Father except through him.
In Luke 13, it says that the gate/door is narrow.
In Revelation, it says that Jesus stands at the door and knocks and that if anyone (the church in that context) will open the door, He will come in and sup with them.
That would be an interesting word study: door, gate to see the connections.
How fitting that a place where God’s people come to worship and learn would also be a place of consolation and healing. How hard your heart must be to make an issue of the day and location of such a great thing happening rather than rejoicing in the good thing. And how blind and self preserving would you have to be to miss Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God and the Messiah! And yet Jesus’ explanations are fitting. If you do anything on the Sabbath to take care of issues that arise, how much more fitting is it for Jesus to heal this woman. And if Jesus is doing the kind of things that only God could do and they are consistent with the kind of things the Father would accomplish, then it shows that He is not only the Son of God, but also God Himself. But it is also clear that there are those who are open to the message and those that are closed to it. And that is as true today as it was then. Those sheep hear the message and follow. And in that sense, the door is narrow. There will not be many who go through. There will be those who think because of their status in this life that it will get them into the next. But that has no bearing. What matters is Jesus and our faith in Him. And for Jesus to be the Savior, He must die. And His death was orchestrated in the way it would happen and what guys like Herod wanted to do in the context of that plan didn’t matter. But Jesus cares for the Jewish people and just wished they got God’s point in His day and throughout their history.