18 Feb - Luke 6

Today we are reading Luke 6 in the Tattoo Church Reading Plan. Here’s some points of interest:

1. Luke starts out talking a lot about the “Sabbath.” This is referring to one day a week that God had told his people to set aside to rest and worship him. However, as the years went by religious leaders started implementing a lot of rules on top of what God had asked them to do. I’m sure the religious leaders started out with good intentions but after awhile it became a system that they hid behind. The religious leaders who were around Jesus did not even want him to heal people on this “holy” day. Jesus told them he was “Lord of the Sabbath” and healed the man anyway and told them it’s better to do good on the Sabbath than to do evil. 
2. In verse 12 we read that Jesus chose his 12 disciples (later called apostles) from a larger group of followers. Obviously there were many people who were following Jesus around but he only chose 12 of them to be in his inner circle; kind of like apprentices.
3. Jesus proceeded to teach his disciples and the others gathered about poor and rich people but Jesus was using these identifiers (poor and rich) to talk about people who follow God (the poor) and people who follow their own desires (the rich). Read that section again (verses 20-26) with this in mind.
4. From verse 27 on Jesus lays out in detail how one of his followers is to conduct themselves. 
5. Jesus talks about good trees and different kinds of fruit. He often used parables, which are stories that have a value they reinforce, and this was one of those times but he speaks clearly afterwards. Jesus says; “the good [person] brings good things out of the good stored up in [their] heart, and the evil [person] brings evil things out of the evil stored up in [their] heart.” 

Love your enemies, do not judge others, forgive people who wrong you, give whenever you see a need you can meet; these are a few of the ways a person who follows Jesus should live. That list is pretty convicting isn’t it? You may be thinking it is impossible to live a life like that. First, I would say it’s not impossible, it’s exciting. Second, I would say that it should be the foundation of your life not just something that you add to it. Jesus talks about this very idea in verses 46-49. He tells us if we hear his words (the Bible) and put them into practice it is like we are building a strong foundation for a house that storms cannot shake. However, if we hear his words and ignore them it’s like building a house on the ground with no foundation; when the rain came it caused the house to collapse. Lastly, I think it safe to assume we’d all agree the world would be a  much better place if everyone lived by these four simple principles regardless our their faith orientation. Yes?

Do you hear the teachings of Jesus and try to apply them to your life? Do you love your enemies? Do you quickly forgive people who wrong you? Do you try to help people you who you know need help? If not how can you start to making the teachings of Jesus the foundation of your life this week? Even if you don’t claim to follow Jesus wouldn’t living by these principles improve your life or at least improve the life of those in your immediate surroundings on a daily basis? If so, then wouldn’t it be logical to explore more of what Jesus taught and how it may just improve your life?