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 12-13.

    Jesus’ teachings in today’s passage are all closely related to each other. I may not touch on all of them, but I believe the theme is there on those as well. The passage starts out by warning us to be more afraid of God, who destroy our very selves, than of men, who, no matter how powerful, can only destroy our bodies. Yet, from there He points out that we are valuable to God, who cares about the lives of mere sparrows (which can be bought in numbers for mere pennies).

I am going to step away from my main theme to say something about blasphemy. It is one thing to deny that some particular person is a person of God, even if that person is Jesus Himself. However, calling good evil, and evil good is another matter entirely. When you start to call that which is clearly evil a good thing you begin moving into territory from which there is no return. I struggle with writing this in a way does not leave room for misinterpretation, but I have seen those who once knew the truth deny it in such a way that it is clear they will never accept it again.

    Having spoken about how much God values each individual one of us, Jesus goes on to tell a parable about a man who chose to expand how much wealth he could store. Jesus uses that parable as a jumping off point to advise us not to worry about how much wealth we have, to not even worry about whether we have enough for our next meal, to pay for a roof over our heads, or clothes to wear. Instead of saving our wealth we should invest it in doing good for others. By doing so we will be saving up heavenly wealth where it cannot be lost or stolen. God will provide for our needs, so we need not worry about how they will be met.

    The parable about the fig tree Jesus tells a short time later fits right in with this theme. God is looking for us to bear the fruit of our faith. In many ways this is an explanation about how to deal with feelings of depression and uselessness. It is God’s desire for everyone to come to Him, but His patience has limits. Our time to serve God will run out eventually. We need to take advantage of the opportunities to do good which present themselves to us because they may be the last that we will have.