A Journey Through Luke

On more than one occasion, Jesus talked to his followers about worldly possessions. And on one occasion in particular, he hit the topic from a couple of angles. In Luke 12, he tells his disciples what to do when it comes to the bare necessities of life: food, clothing, and shelter. He tells them: “Don’t worry about things like that. God knows you need that stuff. You’ll be taken care of in that regard.”

But then Jesus takes it a step further. He tells those listening: “Sell your possessions and give to the poor.” It’s important to remember he’s speaking directly to his disciples here. He’s not necessarily telling every single person to get rid of everything they’ve got. But still he gives a great principle on why he told his disciples that, and it’s a principle we should pay close attention to.

In that same verse, he offers this thought: “Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.” In other words, hold your material possessions very loosely. They’re not going to last forever anyway. Put your attention toward things that will matter in the halls of eternity.

In verse 34, Jesus says something that gives another great guideline when it comes to approaching the topic of possessions. He declares, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Jesus knew it would be easy for possessions to become what people treasure. And he didn’t want people’s hearts to be wrapped around things that won’t last.

To bring the words of Jesus into your situation, ask yourself: Where do I want my heart to be? Your heart (that is, your attention, your energy) will go somewhere, and there are only so many places it can go. It’s going to gravitate toward the thing (or things) you treasure.

So, if you find your heart going toward a lot of things that don’t really matter—and it’s always at the expense of the things that do matter—it’s time to consider if something should stay or go.

If your heart follows the things you treasure, don’t hold too tightly to those treasures that don’t mean very much. Things that don’t matter in the long run shouldn’t eat up a lot of space in our hearts.

 That’s all for now. Before next time, read Luke chapters 13 and 14.

You don’t have to tell anyone else your answers, but if someone were to ask you questions like: How many minutes do you think you’ve prayed during the last seven days?

If you pray at a certain time of day, when is it?

What do you pray for?

How would you answer those questions? While there are no right or wrong answers, prayer is simply an opportunity to connect with your heavenly Father on a personal level.

In Chapter 11, we read how Jesus taught his disciples to pray. He literally said, “When you pray, say this.” And he goes on to say what we know as “The Lord’s Prayer.” The Gospel of Matthew also mentions this story, so you can find the same prayer there as well. There are a few minor word differences between the Matthew version and the Luke version, but the two accounts are talking about the same thing.

In that prayer, Jesus covers so much ground with so few words. He tells them to address this eternal God—a perfect, holy God, who resides in heaven—as “Father.” It cleared up any confusion that may have existed in terms of who they should be praying to or how they should view God. Even though God is vastly different and greater than anything they could imagine, they were to think of him as a perfect heavenly Father, and that’s who they should pray to.

The Lord’s Prayer is a beautiful portrait of how God is all-powerful and in a category of his own yet at the same time able to relate to us.

So today, take a moment to slowly and reflectively pray this to your heavenly Father.

“Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.”

Before next time, read Luke Chapter 12.

In Luke 9, we read about something commonly called “the transfiguration.” Jesus and three of his disciples went up onto a mountain to pray, and something miraculous happened. Jesus’s physical appearance changed to show he truly was divine, and visions of two heroes of the Old Testament (Moses and Elijah) appeared with Jesus as well. As you can imagine, Jesus’s friends who saw this—Peter, James, and John—would have been stunned. And Luke points out that the three saw this as they were on the verge of being asleep, so that must have been quite the wake-up moment!

For them to see Jesus in a deified state like that is something called a “theophany,” meaning “God appearing.” There are only a few theophanies mentioned in the Bible, where people got to see a physical appearance of God in some sort of supernatural, miraculous fashion like the one Luke mentions. And with Moses and Elijah to appear alongside Jesus was an indicator Jesus was there to fulfill what God promised centuries ago—to send someone to restore people’s relationship with God and to make God’s people a blessing for the entire world.

The transfiguration was so incredible that Peter offered to build a shelter for each of the three men who had appeared. Now, these shelters Peter was talking about were most likely a type of booth used in one of the Jewish celebrations—a type of booth a Jewish person would come to for seven days straight. It was Peter’s way of saying, “Can we just keep this moment going for a while? Can it stay this way? This is incredible.”

Certainly there was a reason God wanted Peter, James, and John to see Jesus, Moses, and Elijah in this glorified state. This transfiguration gave them a clearer picture of who Jesus was. For Peter to proclaim, “It is good for us to be here” is one of the great understatements of all time.

But that moment wouldn’t last forever. It was brief. The three friends would come down from that mountain with Jesus, and their ministry would continue. But it would continue with the memory of something that would inspire them going forward.

Occasionally, you’ll have some spiritual highs. Maybe it’s a song you hear at just the right time. Maybe you feel like God brought someone into your life that helped change you. Or maybe you feel like you were witness to a bona fide miracle. Whatever your moment was (or moments), it didn’t last forever. However, there’s no telling what God can do with that moment. From time to time, it’s good to think back and remember one of those moments. How can remembering it inspire you to live out your faith and inspire others to live out theirs?

That’s it for this time. Read Chapters 10 and 11 to get ready for the next one.

It’s no secret that Jesus did much of his teaching in the form of parables. A parable is a fictional story with a spiritual lesson. And, typically, when Jesus told a parable, he didn’t explicitly tell the exact meaning of the parable. It was up to the listener to decipher what it meant. In fact, as we read in Luke 8:10, Jesus told his disciples that was sort of the reason he taught so much in parables. It was one of the ways to tell if someone was really interested in the things of God. If they understood the parable, or if they were curious enough to try to find the meaning of the parable, that was an indicator of someone trying to take a next step in their faith. But for those who would hear parables and not really try to understand them, well, that was an indicator they may not be interested in what Jesus was trying to tell them about God. And to illustrate that point, he told them a parable. So yes, he told a parable to explain why he told parables!

In this particular parable (also in Luke 8), we hear about a farmer who sowed (or planted) seeds in several different places. He accidentally dropped some of the seeds on his walking path and the birds ate them. Some others got dropped among rocks and thorn bushes, and a few sprouts grew but died pretty quickly. Some got placed into good soil. As you can guess, the seeds that ended up in the good soil yielded a way better crop than the seeds that landed in the other places. In each situation, the seed was the same. It was the environment that made all the difference.

The disciples asked him what all that meant, and he told them: “The seed is the Word of God, or the message of God—something to point people toward God. And there are times when that message doesn’t really take root in someone’s life, but sometimes it does. And when it does, there’s growth—not just immediate growth, but sustained growth. There’s long-term change.”

Maybe you can relate to what he was talking about in that parable. Perhaps you remember a season when your faith was a big part of your life. But now, if you’re honest, maybe it’s not. And just like some of those seeds were trampled and eaten by birds or fell into rocks or thorns, obstacles got in the way of your relationship with God being a bigger part of your life. If that’s the case, what’s that obstacle? What would it look like to remove it? Is it still even there? What would it take for you to dig into that good soil and see real, life-changing growth?

Before the next session, read Luke Chapter 9.

Imagine for a second that your friend is working as a server at a local restaurant. You know he’s working on a particular night, and you and a few others decide to go out and sit in his section. But when you get there, you see the night is going horribly for your friend. The place is understaffed. Guests aren’t happy. Your friend is not having a good night at work. Even though you’re a paying customer, what would you say to your friend?

“Don’t worry about us! We’re fine. Come back and take care of us when you can.

We can wait. No problem.”

And you’d feel good about doing that. You’re doing something nice for your friend. You’re giving him a break. 

But according to Dr. Richard Beck, the author of the book Unclean, there has been no significant moral demonstration on your part. As Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount, some of which appears in Luke 6, even the pagans do that. Everybody takes care of their own people.

A mark of Jesus followers is how we think about and treat the people who are not our people. It’s when we offer the same hospitality to those who look different, vote differently, or live differently. It’s when we truly see those people as just as valuable as anyone else.

As Jesus said, Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:35–36)

That’s it for now. Before next time, read Chapter 8.

We don’t have many details about Jesus’s life before his public ministry began. Matthew and Luke give us some highlights surrounding Jesus’s birth, and Luke tells us a quick story about Jesus bailing on his family for a few days when he was about 12 when he learned and taught at the temple. But that’s about it.

Most of the stories written about Jesus start when he was about 30 years old. It’s around this age when he really began to embrace and live out his role as the Son of God. Something happened then. We don’t know what, or how his heavenly Father communicated it to him, but it was time. It was time for him to step out of the shadows and show people who he really was… to show people who God really was.

His first way of doing that was demonstrating that he could withstand even the greatest of temptations and still remain focused on his mission that lay ahead. In Luke 4, we read that God directed Jesus into the wilderness, where he ate nothing for a solid forty days. It’s then—hungry and tired—that Jesus is tempted by the devil himself. Food, power… he would get both of those if he’d just jump through a couple of the devil’s hoops. But he resists.

The enemy was trying to get him to doubt God the Father, but Jesus repeatedly showed that he believed that what his Father said could be trusted.

It’s not quite the same as what Jesus experienced, but we’re faced with similar choices on a regular basis: Do I trust what God has for me—or will have for me in the future—is good enough? Or am I willing to take a shortcut for short-term satisfaction?

Can God provide intimacy for me in a healthy way, or do I take the shortcut of finding intimacy in the wrong way?

Can I learn to be content with whatever material possessions I have, or am I willing to take a shortcut to gain even more?

Do I have a need to gain or hang onto popularity or power? Am I willing to take a shortcut ethically to try to get them or keep them?

That’s it for now. Before next time, read Chapters 6 and 7.