Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 17-18.

I find it interesting that when the disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith, He first told them, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.”  Then He followed that up with a short parable which had the point, “when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.'”  Later in today’s passage, Jesus tells a story about a Pharisee and tax collector who were praying in the temple.  The Pharisee thanked God that he was a better person than those around him like the tax collector.  The tax collector on the other hand prayed, “God have mercy on me, a sinner.”  Jesus told us we should be like the tax collector, not the Pharisee.  These two things together give us a clear picture how we should view serving God and those around us.  No matter what we have done, we are still unworthy of the blessings God has given us.  Equally, we are not better than others, not even those we perceive as not doing God’s will.  We need to stop worrying about if we have enough faith, or even thinking that our faith is not enough.  Jesus told us that we don’t need much faith, just the amount of a mustard seed, and that all we need to do is what God directs us to do.  We need to stop looking for the kingdom of God, because it is already in our midst, or, as the translators’ note for Chapter 17 verse 20 says, it is within us.  Let us not look for more faith, or for rest from our works.  God is within us and will give us the faith we need to do His will if we seek to do it.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 17-18.

When Jesus’ disciples asked Him to increase their faith, He told them two things.  He told them that it only takes a small amount of faith to do great things.  We easily see how that part of His answer applies.  On the other hand, we don’t usually connect the second part of His answer with ways to increase our faith.   Jesus tells us that to increase our faith we should seek how we can serve God more, all the while recognizing that our work for God does not make us worthy of His mercy.  So, Jesus tells us that we don’t need as much faith as we think we do.  He follows that up by telling us that to get more faith we should do what we know God asks of us, and then look for more to do for Him.  In a way the other teaching I want to highlight out of this passage is related.  Jesus teaches that we should pray repeatedly for those actions we desire God to take.  In a way this is a way to follow Jesus’ directions on building faith.  God wants us to pray for that which we desire.  So, we can build our faith by praying for what we desire until either God grants it to us or we realize God has something better for us.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 17-18.

Today is another day where I am not sure that I can tie everything I want to write about together.  First I want to write about what I believe is Jesus’ hardest teaching.  It starts out relatively easy: if someone close to us, a “brother or sister”, perhaps a fellow Believer, sins against us, we should confront them, and, if they repent, forgive them.  But it gets really hard, really fast: if they sin against us again, but come back and say that they repent, we must forgive them again, even if they do it seven times in a day (and I don’t think Jesus was saying that we can stop forgiving if they do it an eighth time).  The first time is easy because it seems to say that the first time they have to actually repent for us to be required to forgive them, but it is clear that after that all they have to do is say that their sorry and we are supposed to forgive them.  Ultimately, I believe that Jesus teaches us that we should forgive everyone who offends against us, not for their sake, but for our own.  There exists a saying that goes, “Not forgiving others is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die.”

Next I want to look at what Jesus has to say about His return and the coming of the Kingdom of God.  Actually, I should put that in the reverse order, for He discussed the coming of the Kingdom of God before He spoke of His return.  When asked to predict when the Kingdom of God would come, Jesus answered that no one can predict that because the Kingdom of God is within us (or, perhaps He was saying that no one can know when it will come for someone else).  After this when He was speaking to just His disciples, He told them that when the Messiah returned, everyone would know it; His return will be like a bolt of lightning which crosses the entire sky, except this “lightning bolt” will go across the sky all around the globe.  Further, Jesus tells us that upon His return, some will be suddenly taken, while others right next to them will remain.  From this account it is not clear if it is a good thing to be taken, or to remain, but since Jesus’ message was that we should be prepared because there would be no time to prepare when that day arrives, it does not matter.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 17-18.

I know that I need to improve my prayer life: I do not pray as much as I should, nor the way that I should.  Overall, I struggle with prayer.  So, passages such as Jesus’ story about the widow and the unjust judge strike home for me.  In this case, it reminded me of the importance of continuing to pray for the people around us and for God to pour out His Spirit upon this nation and the world.  There are many bad things going on today.  We will not fix them by petitioning the government, political activism, or commercial boycotts.  No, the only way we will bring about change is by praying persistently and serving others as God directs us.  I want to point out that the story of the blind beggar receiving his sight at the end of today’s passage provides an example of persistent prayer. So, let us pray persistently for God to pour out His Spirit upon the people of our land, including ourselves.

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

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 17-18

Perhaps Luke just wrote it this way to move from one thing to another, but this passage reads as if the disciples asked Jesus about how to increase their faith in response to His teaching about forgiveness.  So, that makes me think we need to realize just how hard obeying Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness is.  The disciples heard what He had to say and their first thought was, “How can I get enough faith to do that?”  If someone wrongs us repeatedly and asks for forgiveness each time, we are to grant that forgiveness each time, even if they do so seven times in one day.  Let’s be clear that Jesus was not saying that we only have to forgive people seven times in one day.  He was saying that if people wrong us and ask our forgiveness, we should give it to them, no matter how often they have wronged us.

Now, let’s look at what Jesus says about how we increase our faith.  Initially, I was going to start here, but then I realized what I wrote in the previous paragraph and I thought that was important to write about as well.  The first thing Jesus says in response to the question about how to increase our faith is that it doesn’t take much faith to accomplish miraculous things.  As to the answer to the question, it is both easier than we might think and immensely harder than we would like.  If you want to increase your faith, and you should desire to increase your faith, you need to do that which you know is God’s will with no expectation of thanks or reward.  The more we serve God, the more we will see His power, and thus the more we will have faith in what He can do.  We do not grow our faith by serving God in the hopes of reward.  We grow our faith by recognizing that serving God is our duty and then doing so.  Our reward for serving God will be more opportunities to serve Him.

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 17-18

I usually try to come up with a way to tie all of the lessons from the passage I want to write about into a coherent whole before I start writing.  Then I leave out those things which do not fit.  Today I am going to just start with the things I want to cover and see where that leads me.

Jesus told His disciples (and through them us) that temptation cannot be avoided, but we should do our best not to be the source of temptation for others.  If someone sins (say, by tempting you to sin), confront them with their sin.  If they admit to sinning and ask for forgiveness, forgive them…even if it is the seventh time today.  The disciples response to this was to ask Jesus to show them how to increase their faith.  Jesus’ answer was that even a minuscule amount of faith can do great things.  He further said that the way to build faith was to expect that the only reward for acting in faith was another task to which we would need to apply our faith.

Later in the passage, Luke recounts two parables which Jesus told His disciples.  Both of them address the the themes I looked at in the previous paragraph.  In the parable of the persistent widow Jesus gives us a lesson on building faith.  He points out that even the wicked will grant justice to someone who is persistent enough.  How much more will God grant us justice if we persistently pray for it?  In the parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector, Jesus tells us not to think of ourselves as better than others.  Instead, when we pray we should recognize our sins and failures and throw ourselves on God’s mercy.  Our faith will only grow when we recognize our need for God to transform us.