Know

Luke 5:1-6:16

When Gwen and I had saved enough money to make a down payment on a house of our own, it was exciting to go house hunting. It was fun to meet with our real estate agent, tour the potential homes she had found for us, and imagine what it would be like to live in them. Finally, we found one that seemed perfect for us! We started the process of purchasing the house, certain that God had led us to our dream house. A few days later, we got the news that someone else had beaten us to the punch and submitted their bid before ours. No worries, obviously God had an even more perfect house for us somewhere else. This pattern would repeat for the next several months. We would find a house that we were sure the Lord had handpicked for us, only for the deal to fall apart at the last minute. This led to repeated disappointment and discouragement. We obviously had no idea what house God had chosen for us, or even if he had a place for us at all. Our discouragement caused us to take a long break from house hunting. In the end, we found our home at just the right time, when the need was greatest. We thought we knew God’s will, but the Lord had a better plan.

In this week’s scripture focus, Jesus heals the sick and afflicted. He offers salvation to sinners and welcomes outsiders into the Kingdom. He also comes into conflict with the Pharisees and other religious leaders. They ignore the healing of a paralyzed man, but take issue when Jesus forgives the man’s sins. They take issue with the fact that Jesus consorts with all the “wrong” people and doesn’t follow the “correct” religious practices. Because of this, they begin to plot against the Messiah they’ve been waiting for hundreds of years to meet.

The Pharisees had a similar problem to the one that Gwen and I had with house hunting; they were so certain that they knew God’s will that they missed it completely. Their sin was one of pride. They were so proud of their knowledge of scripture that it became an idol to them, and it blinded them to what was going on right before their eyes. They knew a lot about the Messiah; sadly, this prevented them from knowing the Messiah. They were certain that they knew what Israel’s Savior would look like and, as far as they were concerned, Jesus wasn’t it. They wanted a Savior who looked, thought, and acted like them. Christian author Anne Lamott had this to say, “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” We have to remember that Jesus came to live in our hearts, not the box we’ve tried to put him in.

In the love of Christ,

Mike