Tag Archives: witnesses

I can’t decide for you (Luke 10:10-16) October 25, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – 2 Chronicles 25-28

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Luke 10:10-16
Jesus: Of course, not every town will welcome you. If you’re rejected, walk through the streets and say, “We’re leaving this town. We’ll wipe off the dust that clings to our feet in protest against you. But even so, know this: the kingdom of God has come near.” I tell you the truth, on judgment day, Sodom will have an easier time of it than the town that rejects My messengers.
It’s going to be bad for you, Chorazin! It’s going to be bad for you, Bethsaida! If the mighty works done in your streets had been done in the cities of Tyre and Sidon, they would have been moved to turn to God and cry out in sackcloth and ashes. On judgment day, Tyre and Sidon will have an easier time of it than you. It’s going to be bad for you, too, Capernaum! Will you be celebrated to heaven? No, you will go down to the place of the dead.
Listen, disciples: if people give you a hearing, they’re giving Me a hearing. If they reject you, they’re rejecting Me. And if they reject Me, they’re rejecting the One who sent Me. So—go now!

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

Scary words again from Jesus’ lips. Just before this, we heard Him tell seventy of His disciples to travel throughout the region and tell His message to everyone who would listen. He told them and us to start at home and spread out to the surrounding areas until the whole world heard the message of salvation. Jesus gave them the bold messge that they would have the power to heal and drive out demons and do miraculous things in His names as they carried the Father’s message with them.

Now Jesus gives those He sends out this message of encouragement. It doesn’t sound like much encouragement, but it really is. It says that not everyone will listen and respond to the message of repentance that they share. That might sound discouraging to you, but after preaching God’s words for over 30 years, I find His words encouraging. I’ll tell you why.

My job is not to win people to Christ. I’m not responsible for saving anyone. I’m not responsible for changing people’s minds and turning them into Christians. My responsibility is to share the message the best way I know how and to live its message daily in my own life. My responsibility is to ensure I’m ready at any moment to give my testimony to anyone who is willing to hear it. I am not accountable for their response, but I am accountable for sharing the message to those God prompts me to receive my testimony.

There is a passage in Ezekiel Chapter 3 that I’m often reminded of when I’m prompted by God to speak to someone. God is speaking to Ezekiel and says, “If I send this message to a wicked person—“You will die”—but then you fail to warn him or help him to reconsider his wickedness so that he may not die, then he will die as a result of his evil deeds. It will be your fault for not warning him. His blood will be on your hands. But if you do forewarn a wicked person and give him My message, and yet he does not change his wicked thoughts and actions, then he will die as a result of his evil deeds. But you will have saved your own life by doing what I directed.”

At the judgment, I don’t want to stand before God with anyone else’s blood on my hands. I want to make it to heaven and I want to bring others with me. I want to give those around me an opportunity to meet the One who can restore them to a right relationship with God just as He did for me. I want to let others know they do not have to bow down to the tyranny of sin, but can be freed by the powerful blood shed for them on the cross one day long ago on the hill called Golgotha. I want them to know they can have the same testimony I have and millions of others have had throughout the ages. Jesus saves me from my sins. He set me free through His shed blood. He lives today in my soul. He is the Lord of my life.

I can’t make the decision whether you will accept my words as true. I can’t make the decision whether you will ask Jesus to forgive you of your past. I can’t decide for you if Jesus will be the Lord of your life and your reason for living. I wish I could. But it’s not a decision I can make. Each of us must decide for ourselves. We must come to the conclusion personally that we want Jesus to reign in our life and them let Him do so. No one can do that for you except you. But it is a decision you will never regret if you decide to let Him rule your life. He is God, after all.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

How can we fail? (Luke 9:3-5) October 19, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Psalms 120-121

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Luke 9:3-5
These were Jesus’ instructions:
Travel light on your journey: don’t take a staff, backpack, bread, money, or even an extra change of clothes.
When you enter a house, stay there until you leave that city.
If a town rejects you, shake the dust from your feet as you leave as a witness against them.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

I wonder if Jesus’ disciples thought He had lost His mind when He gave them these instructions as He sent them out into the surrounding towns and villages to share God’s message that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Are you kidding me? Take off without food or money or even anything to change into so I can wash my clothes from one day to the next? Where am I supposed to sleep? How am I supposed to eat? How will I make my way from place to place? Will God really take care of me as I take this message from one village to the next?

If you read a little further in Luke, you’ll find the reports about the disciples’ success. They were amazed at the provisions of a mighty God. They found listening ears. They found unbridled hospitality. They found villages and towns anxious to hear the good news they had to share as they traveled from place to place. Their challenge was trusting God enough to believe He would take care of their needs from day to day. But when they trusted Him, He took care of them.

It’s not unlike so many of the missionaries’ stories you hear from those our churches send into other places to share God’s word and message of salvation. God provides. Sometimes it’s money at just the right time. Sometimes it’s the right person to give guidance or assistance through a particular problem. Sometimes it’s the right place or property or building that seems impossible to secure for God’s use, but suddenly miracles take place and the spot is in your hands. God works through incredible means to secure the things we need to carry out the tasks He has given us to accomplish. When we follow His will for our lives, we cannot fail because it’s really not our mission, it’s His mission. And He can never fail.

What about this find a house and stay there? No invitation? No prior arrangements? Just go knock on the door and tell them we’re staying for a while? Tell them to vacate a bed and make room at the table?

“Well, how long are you staying?” they ask.

“Oh, until we leave.”

“How long will that be?”

“God will let us know. But thanks for the room until then.”

Now that sounds like a plan, doesn’t it? I’m ready to barge into a stranger’s house and tell them I’m taking up residence until God tells me to leave, aren’t you? But see, that’s the interesting thing about how God works. Sometimes God uses what looks like foolishness to the world to accomplish what He wants just to show us that He is in charge. He is God and we are not. He can make things happen behind the scenes that we have no idea is happening.

Jesus told His disciples to kick the dust off their feet in the towns that wouldn’t accept their message as a curse against them. But as you read their reports, I expect they didn’t use those curses much. That was one of the rules Jesus gave them, but God moves ahead of us when He gives us a job to do. I’m not sure they ever exercised that last rule. At least they never reported using it when they returned.

So the message for us today is to recognize that God gives us jobs to do. He doesn’t expect us to sit idle in our pews and just listen to sermons every week and feel good about what the preacher tells us. He doesn’t expect us to just enjoy the music we hear on Sunday or when we happen to turn on a religious radio station. God has jobs He wants us to do. If you listen for Him, you’ll hear Him and He will give you a mission to further His plans to expand His kingdom. He will put you in the path of individuals that need to hear your story and know that God is good and can free them from the bondage of sin just as He freed you from the bondage of sin.

The world will think you foolish in the undertaking of God’s plan. But the world is blinded by Satan’s lies. Remember God created this place and makes everything work. While the world listens to Satan’s lies about what won’t work, God makes it happen. Just listen to Him. Follow His directions. Do what He says. You’ll find that His instructions turn out well every time. After all, He wrote the book. He does the impossible. He is God. How can we fail if we follow in His path?

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Where do you share the message? (Luke 5:31-32) September 27, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – 2 Chronicles 6-10

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Luke 5:31-32
Jesus (answering for the disciples): Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. I haven’t come for the pure and upstanding; I’ve come to call notorious sinners to rethink their lives and turn to God.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

We have done something as Christians I’m not sure Jesus would be too happy about. What is it? We cling together in little conclaves and hide ourselves away from the world when it comes to exploring God’s word. We get together with other Christians in our churches and cathedrals and we teach each other if we learn anything about scriptures at all. We build these beautiful and sometimes not so beautiful buildings, but then we put up a cross on the roof or on the side of the building or on a sign outside and expect people to come inside and find God.

But Jesus didn’t work that way when He was with us. He attended the synagogues on the Sabbath wherever He happened to be at the time. He went to the Temple whenever He was in Jerusalem. But to share the message His Father intended Him to share with the world, He went to the places people gathered and that was not the synagogues and temple. He taught in the markets and on the seashore. He picked hillsides and the homes of prominent and not so prominent people. He taught whenever and wherever people gathered to hear Him.

He went to the people because He knew people needed to hear the message and knew those who needed to hear the message most would not come to the temple or synagogue to hear it. Like Adam, they would hide from God rather than come into His presence for cleansing. If Jesus was going to help them, He would have to go to them. And unlike most physicians today, Jesus made house calls.

So we find Jesus visiting the tax collectors and prostitutes and thieves and liars and all those other savory characters that you’d never expect to find in the temple because they would be afraid others would point out their sin instead of welcoming them into God’s presence for forgiveness – just like the Pharisees did.

And we in the Christian faith, too often do the same thing the Pharisees did. We cloister ourselves in our fine buildings and sing our songs, listen to sermons, attend our classes, and if anyone comes into our churches that don’t look or act like us, we send signals that help them understand they really aren’t as welcome as we say they are. Those visitors come in and sit in the back or maybe are even ushered to a middle seat somewhere, but they never return because we treat them like lepers. They are tax collectors, prostitutes, thieves, liars, sinners. God forbid that we let them into our Christian clubhouse.

Isn’t it time that we take up the mantle as Jesus taught us? He went to the places where the people that needed Him lived and worked and gathered for mutual comfort. He went to the sick at heart. He went to those that needed cleansing from the sickness in their spirit. He found Himself in those places filled with people who would never darken the door of the temple or the synagogue. But He gave the same message to those they He gave to the people in the synagogue.

Do you understand why? Because all of us are sinners. And in God’s eyes there is really no difference between the tax collector and the gossip, the prostitute and those who would cause dissension in the church. All have sinned and come short of the God’s glory they seek. We are not worthy to stand in His presence, and yet He calls us to follow Him. He calls us to come to Him for healing, cleansing, a right relationship with our heavenly Father.

Jesus showed us what we should do, then He did something none of us would probably do if we were God. He entrusted His message to us. He told us to go share His message throughout the world. Can you believe that? God put the message of salvation into the hands of sinners who have felt the touch of His redemptive grace. We were His enemies, but He still gave us the mission of sharing the message that will give people hope and a future.

So who do we take that message to? Do we hold it in our churches and cathedrals? Jesus didn’t. We are to take it to work with us. We’re to take it to school and the grocery. We’re to take it to our neighbors. We’re to take it to the gas station and our mechanic. We’re to take it everywhere we go and we’re to take the message of God’s grace and forgiveness to those who need it most.

Do you remember who needs it most? Everyone. We’re all sinners. Some of us are saved by His grace, if we have asked for His forgiveness. But we all need His message. So share the hope and grace He gives to someone you meet today. Don’t invite them to church to hear the message, share it with them where you find them. It will make such a difference in how they hear it from you. 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.