wednesdays with luke

sorry i've been missing the last 2 weeks on these posts. 2 weeks ago i went to the shawn mcdonald concert & missed our study & last week i was sick. those are just excuses, so i apologize.

here is today's post on what we discussed in luke

this week that i think we call can take from.

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in Luke 6, Jesus addresses the hearts of the pharisees of his day.

by definition, pharisees were a powerful branch of the Jewish religious community during Jesus' time. considered to be religious experts, this group believed that the oral law of the Jewish faith was as equally authoritative & inspired by God as the written law. consequently, they strictly obeyed God's laws & all the tradition of interpretation they had established. Jesus reserved some of his harshest criticism for them.

in luke 6 two examples are given where Jesus was found doing something on the Sabbath, a day that was to be kept holy, that in his day was not following the laws.

luke 6:6-11 states

6 on another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was

teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered.

7 And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him,

to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath,

so that they might find a reason to accuse him.

8 But he knew their thoughts, and he said

to the man with the withered hand,

"Come and stand here." And he rose and stood there.

9 And Jesus said to them, "I ask you,

is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good

or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?"

10 And after looking around at them

all he said to him, "Stretch out your hand."

And he did so, and his hand was restored.

11 But they were filled with fury and discussed

with one another what they might do to Jesus.

now the pharisees weren't some crazed group of people. these were Gods people. they valued God's word & studied and knew their religion well, but they had let their pride in following every detailed law, that they missed the point.

simply put, the pharisees' pride made them miss the Saviour. their pride made them miss His healing. Jesus was living & right in front of them healing a man's hand, working miracles, all the while questioning the pharisees hearts, not their actions, but their motives... & they missed it all. they questioned this man who worked these miracles & were to the point of "fury" at Jesus at his opposition to the law they knew & followed so well. he turned their world upside down.

how many times do we as christians get so prideful & self righteous in our "religion" that we miss Jesus' heart behind it all? how many day are we so stubborn to what we believe, our traditions, man made laws, our legalism, that we miss the miracle of Jesus?

i'm going to start looking at my inner pharisee more often.

i don't want to miss the miracle or

healing that Jesus has to offer me.

do you?