I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 8.

    Every year when I get to the Gospel of Luke I wonder if I am being repetitive with what I write about the stories which are repeated in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Jesus comments after saying that no one lights a lamp and then hides provides my starting point today. What is written here is very similar to what is written in Matthew. However, there are some slight differences which bring up something we need to which we must pay heed. Jesus says that we must pay attention to HOW we hear. In my writing on the earlier similar passages I pointed out that just because we hear the word of God does not mean that we are listening. Luke’s version reminds us that when we listen with preconceived notions we will hear what we want to hear rather than what God wants to say to us. Jesus tells us that if we do that, it will cause us to lose what little understanding we already had of God’s word and will.

    Many of the accounts of Jesus driving out demons make me think of those with mental illness, but today’s did especially. Part of the reason it did was because of something a Facebook friend posted this morning:

Therapist: “Do you want to talk about…?”
Me: “No, no, no. that is a load bearing neurosis, you move it and this whole thing comes down around us.”

That struck me as rather similar to what the demon-possessed man first said to Jesus, “Why are you interfering with me?” Which is similar to what so many people who are stuck in sinful mental illness say when you try to show them God’s plan for their happiness. Their whole self-identity rests on their sin and self-deception. Their whole lives rely on the support of their sin. Sometimes we have to knock down that support and seemingly destroy their lives so that they can build a new life, only this time based on Jesus. We, also, need to not be afraid to do that to ourselves. Sometimes we have allowed sin to replace God’s will and become an indispensable support for our lives. When we discover we have done that we have to be willing to tear our whole life down and start again.