November 5, 2021
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 Luke? Here’s today’s reading:
Luke 11 (NIV)
Jesus’ Teaching on Prayer
1 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
2 He said to them, “When you pray, say:
“ ‘Father, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
3 Give us each day our daily bread.
4 Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.11:4 Greek everyone who is indebted to us
Always a good reminder to read Jesus’ prayer. I love that He continues to encourage us to be bold, persistent, and continuous in our prayers. God wants us to come to Him but with passion and with all our heart!
I love the simple, honesty in Jesus’ word pictures. No one lights a lamp to cover it…what God is being full of God’s love and light if we don’t share it, if we don’t live it! The outside of the dish is clean but the inside is not…our outward appearance and our heart should both be righteous and clean!
Not surprising how upset the Pharisees get with Him. Their walk was about following the law without relationship and looking the part rather living it!
Luke 11
A lot in these chapters. Jesus teaches how to pray. First praising God then bring your request before him. Forgive. Not easy!! To avenge is mine says the Lord! Next verses. Persistence in prayer. And ask for anything in Jesus name and it will be given unto you. According to God’s will is the key here! He is the potter. We are the clay. Verses 14-20. Always found interesting. Why would satan drive out satan. That makes no sense. But if some of these Pharisees were driving out demons, that might be true without them even realizing. Verse 24. Important to keep a clean house. Verse 29. Ninevites and queen of the south came to repent and accept, but here in front of them is God in flesh and they refuse. Hard to believe stubbornness and jealousy that deep! Verse 33-36. God didn’t fill you with His Spirit to have you hide your gifts Here we go verse 39 to the end. Being brought up Catholic. Saw and lived these verses. I was following those religious leaders right into hell. A priest would walk into our classroom and we would have to get on our knees He was a god. I was told my whole young life I was never good enough But if I did all those religious obligations. There was a slight chance. Went back to the church I grew up in and talked to the head priest. After a while realized he wouldn’t know the Holy Spirit if it was under his nose! What a shame. It bothers me. My sister goes to mass everyday. And she’s not sure if she has salvation. Absolutely atrocious. I hate religion!!
It is important to recognize the guidelines and structure that Jesus gives to prayer here, but even more important is the mindset of prayer that brings together faith, boldness and an understanding of the open handed nature of God. What a powerful idea that when we ask we receive, when we seek we find, when we knock the door is open. What an amazing expression of the gracious and giving nature of our God!! We know that God will not act or answer outside of His will, but our will and need is not completely absent here either! And if a human father’s heart is going to be a reference point for the heart of God, just realize God’s heart is always bigger and more capable.
And how sad it is that those who oppose us need to find ways to discredit the things we do, even when Jesus here is doing something awesome and supernatural. They reason that if He is driving out demons and we don’t believe He is from God, then He must be relying on satan’s power. Jesus dismisses that argument by explaining that that doesn’t make sense because how could satan succeed if he was working against himself. No, Jesus power over demons who are reeking havoc in people’s lives is evidence of God’s power amongst them. And also they/we need to understand the nature and power of evil. That if we try to manage that on our own, or fool around with evil power, or somehow kick out a demon and then not embrace God’s power in keeping them out, they just come back bigger and more numerous. He who is in us is greater then he that is in the world, but satan also is not to be trifled with or taken lightly either.
And Jesus then has all bad things to say about those who oppose Him. They will not get the signs that they seek for, but God will give them Jesus’ death and resurrection (the sign of Jonah). And yet God has done more among them in sending Jesus than those of the past, and so those in the past who came to God will judge the generation that had Jesus because they are rejecting Him. And these detractors and believers need to understand that we become what we believe. If we receive light (God’s revelation), then we will have light inside. If we reject that light, and therefore don’t see and internalize the things of God than we will be full of darkness. In other words, unbelief makes you unopened and that then effects what you become. The chapter then ends with six woes expressed to and about the Jewish leaders that synthesizes Jesus’ thoughts about them. And the main thing is they are focused on the external and on power and position. They stand in judgment on others, while they promote and validate themselves. They load people down with laws and thereby are missing the very one who has been sent by God save them as well the people they are influencing. So they keep them from seeing as well!
“If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”
I thought this was interesting. In the context of prayer and giving good things, the examples are food. God gives beyond food, the Holy Spirit! Would God give the Holy Spirit to anyone that asks Him? If the door is open!
I was also thinking about Jesus and the disciples casting out demons. We do not encounter or talk about people being possessed. How do we discern if someone is possessed or oppressed today? We seem to dismiss this spiritual issue and ascribed physical labels to it, but I have no idea how to discern which is which (aside from the obvious outright demonic activity, I suppose!)
Luke 11-13