Monday, February 16,
2015, 6:57 a.m. – The Lord Jesus put in mind the song “Broken and Contrite.” Speak, Lord, your words to my heart. I read Luke 10:25-37 (ESV).
Do This To Live
And
behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall
I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How
do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your
mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered
correctly; do this, and you will live.”
We know from reading the gospels that not one of us can be
saved by merely following a set of rules or by keeping the law. For one, not
one of us could ever keep the law perfectly. We all stumble in many ways. We
are born into sin. There is no one righteous, no not one. Not one of us could
love the Lord God with our whole heart, soul, strength and mind 24/7. I know
that especially today. I don’t do well when storm systems come through. They
play havoc with my head. I don’t always get headaches, but I feel like I am
driving through the mountains or like my head is in a tunnel. The Lord woke me
6 hours ago to write this, yet I am just now really getting started. I allowed
myself to get distracted with other things, as well. So, if I had to love God
with all my heart, strength, soul and mind in order to be saved, let alone
loving my neighbor as myself, I would not make it. I am a clay vessel.
So, why did Jesus tell him if he did this he would live?
Jesus obviously knew the man could not do this. Perhaps it was to make the man
aware that it was humanly impossible for him to be saved. No amount of good
works or trying to keep all the law would save him. Yet, nothing is impossible
with God, according to his righteousness. Jesus made the way possible for us to
be saved apart from human works and apart from keeping the law with absolute
perfection, since none of us could do this. Jesus Christ, God the Son, became
human for us and died on a cross, taking upon himself the sins of the entire
world. He paid the price for our sin so that we could be saved, and so we could
live eternally with God. It is by God’s grace, through faith, that we are able
to receive such a great salvation (See Eph. 2:8-9).
Nonetheless, our salvation is not absent of works (See: Eph.
2:10) nor is it absent of the necessity of love for God and obedience to his
commands (See: Ro. 6:16; Heb. 5:9; 1 Jn. 2:3-5; 3:24; 5:3; 2 Jn. 1:6; 1 Pet.
1:2). The difference now is that, as believers in Jesus Christ, we are saved by
God’s grace, our sin atoned for, and we are forgiven because of God’s great
love for us. We are now empowered with the Holy Spirit to live for God. We don’t
have to live perfect lives and keep the law perfectly to be saved. We don’t
earn or deserve our own salvation. Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners.
Yet, God’s grace is also not a free license to continue in sin thinking we now
have our ticket into heaven and that God requires nothing of us. He demands
obedience, repentance and genuine love for himself, not to earn our salvation,
though, but as a love response to him for what he did for us, and as evidence
that we have truly trusted in him as Lord and Savior of our lives.
Justifying and
Rationalizing
But
he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
The man, possibly realizing that he could not do as Jesus had
said, looked for a loophole. He tried to find a way around obeying the Lord,
i.e. to justify himself, knowing that he was not loving God fully and that he
lacked in love for his neighbors. That is human nature, is it not, to try to
find ways around obeying what we know is true? We justify, rationalize and
modify so that we can continue to do what we know is wrong or so that we can
excuse away not doing what we know is right for us to do. Yet, even when we are
faithless, Jesus remains faithful. He will lovingly and gently speak truth to
our hearts in ways that will let us know that we are not going the right way or
that we are lacking in love and devotion for him or in love for our fellow humans.
And, then he will tell us to now do what he has shown us. He will challenge us
to not only just listen to the Word but to do what it says (See Jas. 1:22-25).
Jesus’ Life Through
Us
Jesus
replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among
robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now
by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by
on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him,
passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he
was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his
wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought
him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii
and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more
you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you
think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said,
“The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do
likewise.”
In order to get his message across to the man, Jesus gave
him the message in the form of a story (a parable) to illustrate his point. I
believe there is a message for all of us in this story. Not one of us loves
perfectly. I know I am always growing in this area of loving others with God’s love
and according to how God loves me. So, I am praying that the Lord Jesus will
teach me what he wants me to learn from this lesson today.
I want to first of all look at who this injured man might
represent to us today. The main point of the story, I believe, is that someone
was hurting and that he needed help, mercy and healing. There are many hurting
people in this life all around us every day. First and foremost, I believe, are
those who are dead in their sins, beaten down by sin’s deceitfulness who need
salvation. Then, there are those believers in Jesus who have fallen prey to
deception and the tricks of the devil who have fallen for false teaching or for
Satan’s lies which tell them it is ok for them to continue in sin and that God
is still pleased with them. Then there are those who are physically hurting,
perhaps due to the mistreatment at the hands of others, or just because they
live in flesh bodies on this earth, or because of damage they have done to
their own bodies, etc. And, then there are those who are hurting emotionally,
either because of painful childhood memories, or because of being beaten down
emotionally (and verbally) by others, or because of the death of a loved one or
some other kind of loss, or because of loneliness, disappointment or
discouragement, etc.
These people are all around us. We can either choose to look
the other way and to ignore their pain and suffering, or we can pray for a
heart of compassion, mercy, understanding, and sympathy, and for wisdom and
discernment to know how best to meet their real needs. And, I believe what I
just said there is KEY to their healing. We need to see what their real needs are
so we can meet them. There are some people who are the sympathetic kind who
genuinely feel with others in their need, but they try to put Band-Aids over serious
wounds, or they tell them lies just to make them feel good. Lies are never kind
and neither are Band-Aids over serious wounds, though in no way here am I am
diminishing or discounting the necessity of a kind word, or a hug or a smile. Those
things are essential, too, and we all need them!! I do!! My grandchildren’s
hugs are some of the best medicine ever!!
The thing I noticed about this Samaritan who stopped to help
the man is that he took this injured man’s needs seriously and he went the
extra mile to make sure that the man was brought to complete healing. He didn’t
do a quick fix and then go on his way. He didn’t say a bunch of flowery words
hoping it would make the man feel better about his wounds. He bound up the man’s
wounds and poured on them oil and wine. I imagine that this stung, initially,
but that it soon brought relief and much healing. Sometimes, if the wound of
people is a sin wound, in particular, we may have to give some words of counsel
and correction, and those may sting initially, but if received well, they
should result in much healing. The Samaritan assessed the man’s wounds,
determined what was necessary for healing to take place, and then he applied
the necessary treatment which he believed would bring true healing to the man.
Quick fixes or lies to make people feel good never addresses the real wounds
and therefore true healing cannot take place.
The Samaritan didn’t just leave the man then, hoping that
would suffice. He went the distance. He made sure that the man was cared for,
even if he could not care for him himself. We can’t always do this. Sometimes
we meet people only briefly and we share words of encouragement, hope and
healing with them, and then they are out of our lives. Sometimes people are not
receptive to our words or actions meant to bring healing to them, for they want
to continue to live with their serious wounds seething, i.e. they don’t want
our help. But, as we have opportunity, and if follow-up is possible, and the
injured seem receptive to our reaching out to them in love, then we should do
what we can to help see them to complete healing (man to man and woman to
woman). But, in order for us to do this, again it is imperative that we do like
this Samaritan did in assessing the seriousness of the situation and by
applying what is truly necessary for the wounds to be healed. God will give us
wisdom in this if we call upon him and ask for help.
Sometimes we may be the wounded who are in need of healing,
too, and perhaps everyone is just looking the other way or they are ignoring
our wounds, which only compounds them more. Sometimes those who should reach
out to us in love only wound us more with their rejection, hatred, persecution
and mistreatment of us because they don’t want to be bothered with us because
we don’t fit into their plans for their own lives or for their “church,” for
that matter. We are too messy to them, and they don’t want to be bothered. And,
so it is just easier for them to pass us by or to send us somewhere else, but
with no plan for our healing and with no follow-up. They are just discarding
us, period!
So, no matter where you are right now, i.e. if you are the
wounded needing a healing touch, and/or if you are the one needing to reach out
to others in need of hope and healing, we should take our burdens to Jesus
Christ, lay them at his feet, pray for wisdom and for understanding, follow him
wherever he leads us, and be Jesus to the world around us.
Broken and Contrite / An Original Work /
May 13, 2012
I
come before You, Lord, my Savior,
With
humble heart and crushed in spirit.
I
bow before You, I implore You,
Heal
my broken heart, I pray.
Love
You, Jesus, Lord, my master,
You
are the King of my heart.
Lord,
purify my heart within me;
Sanctify
me, whole within.
Oh,
Lord, I long to obey fully
The
words You’ve spoken through Your Spirit.
I
pray You give me grace and mercy,
Strength
and wisdom to obey.
Father
God, my heart’s desire,
Won’t
You set my heart on fire?
Lord,
cleanse my heart of all that hinders
My
walk with You, now I pray.
Oh,
Jesus, Savior, full of mercy,
My
heart cries out for understanding.
I
want to follow You in all ways,
Never
straying from Your truth.
Holy
Spirit, come in power,
Fill
me with Your love today.
Lord,
mold and make me;
Your
hands formed me;
Live
Your life through me, I pray.
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