Author: Bill Hall

Luke 6:12 “Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.”

   An ability of Christ that we often forget about is His knowledge of the future. This knowledge really creates some interesting points of conversation if you think about it. If He knew what would happen next, why pray? Indeed, why shouldn’t His knowledge of the future change what He did on a daily basis in a very profound way? Well it did. He didn’t pray in spite of knowing the future and realizing that it would all turn out all right in the end. He prayed all night because of His knowledge that everything would turn out fine.
   We get so stuck in the present, looking to an uncertain future, that this is the only way we can conceive of reality. But, that is a limited view. Jesus never had to doubt what would come next. And, in our conception, this would cause Him to just kind of drift along, not really engaging in life since life would happen in any case. But this conception is based on a misunderstanding. And the life of Christ allows us to pull out of this misunderstanding. By the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we may begin to understand a life where choices and actions, and even alterations, still fit into the pre-known scheme of all of history.
   This is a difficult concept at first, but think about it this way. If you have never walked a tightrope 1200 ft in the air, you don’t really know what it is like. You can imagine pretty good, but you are not used to it, nor could you likely accomplish it. But, if you watch someone doing it, that act brings you one step closer to knowing the feeling of the doing of it. The same is true with Christ. It is difficult for us to imagine living ‘normal’ life while already knowing the future. But, Jesus has done it, and He brings us closer to the doing of it.
   Though foreign to us now, one day we will understand a life where we more or less know everything that will ever happen, nothing really ever changes, and human imperfection is not even possible. You might cringe. You might think that sounds too outlandish. But if you claim to believe Christ, then you must admit to each point completely. That is our future.
   The question I want to ask here is, if Jesus knew the future and yet spent all night in prayer, what does that teach us? Most of the time we don’t know with much certainty what will happen in the next five minutes.

   Heavenly Father, thank You for giving us Christ! He helps us see so much! We are so limited and yet we can stretch in Him, exercising muscles we never had before. You have pulled us out of our broken reality with your mercy and grace. How can we ever thank You enough? How can we even grow to the place that we need to be? And yet by Your grace we may. Thank You! In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.

Luke 6:11 “But they were filled with rage, and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.”

   The Greek here is very revealing. The scribes and Pharisees were overcome with fury. They had that emotional anger that blinds you to everything. It isn’t rational, measured, controllable, or safe. It was a reckless, shameless sort of rage.
   And yet, they discussed. They conferred. They thought and planned. Bu they did nothing. Any why not? Two reasons. First, they knew they had to be careful. Jesus had quite a following. A botched attempt could upset the careful balance of power they had with he people, and the Romans. But, the second is the heavier factor. It was not yet Jesus’ time. Still relatively early in His ministry, it would be some time before the cross came along. Thus, Jesus did not allow their plans to progress too far at this time. He was in control of the entire situation, and foiled more than one attempt on His life during His ministry. Make no mistake, the cross would never have occurred if He had not allowed it.

   Heavenly Father, thank You for delivering Your children from blindness. This world is blind with rage, ignorant of the danger it flirts with all the time. I praise You for Your merciful kindness! You allow us to escape the evil of this present darkness. May we live to help others see the light! In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.

Luke 6:10

   He looked at them. This was one of those dramatic pauses. He took the time to glance into the eyes of each person in the room. This could have taken anywhere from several seconds to around a minute.
   Why? What was His purpose? Well remember that He had asked a question. He was purposely looking to each of them for an answer. He did this not because He expected to get an answer. But His action implies that they should all have had a quick and obvious answer. They did not. He could have looked round at the them for a while and never would they admit they were in error. Pride was thick.
   Jesus tells the man to stretch out His hand. Based on the wording of the Greek, it looks to be that the hand was already restored. In other words, Jesus had healed the man while He was ‘looking round’ for an answer to His question about doing good. He did it in this sudden way on purpose. He wanted them to be faced with the reality of His power while they were still reeling from the logic of His question. And, it worked. Their response was drastic, illogical, and based on unbelief.

   Heavenly Father, we often see Christ’s miracles as something that we need in our lives. We want to be healed and have all of our problems solved. But, then isn’t there something more important? Don’t we need eyes to see and ears to hear the wonderful words of life? Even for us who are Your children need a sensitivity to the truth. We need to be healed of the callousness of our souls more than the infirmity of our bodies. You are truly gracious because You see and seek to provide our deepest needs. Thank You! In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.

Luke 6:9

   Jesus did not shy away from conflict. He faced His detractors head on. Giving them a challenge to chew on, He steps into the fray with a piece of logic that betrays the love of the God of Jonah. Just as with the Ninevites so many years before, Jesus would show mercy on this day.
   The question here asked by Christ is of course intended to show up the great callousness of human religiosity. Being fixated on the letter of the law, the Jews had built up an artificial wall to reinforce it. But, being far from the One who wrote the law, they were devoid of the Spirit and missed the point.
   Look closely at the question we see here. Is is lawful to save or destroy? Please realize that Jesus is questioning what is allowable for humankind. What standard does the law establish? And, Jesus is talking about just one day of the week. He could just as well heal the man the next day. So He means to say that it is not lawful for humanity to allow a fellow member of the human race to suffer for even one day, not even if it is the Sabbath.
   Of course, we are not as Christ in this matter. He could heal anyone at any time anywhere. For Him there is another standard to follow, a higher standard than the law even. This He reports on several occasions as the ‘will of the Father’ and it is by this that He lived out His time on this earth. This kept Him from at that very moment healing everyone everywhere in every time for all time. But yet, that is what He came to do. He came to make that healing possible, not just physically, but spiritually. It is by the will of the Father that this blessing is applied. And though there will be ‘few that find it’ we are told that “today is the day of salvation”, even of today is the Sabbath.

   Heavenly Father, it is by Your will that all of this is possible, and by Your will that it is governed. I do not have the wisdom or understanding to know the times and seasons in every detail and particular. But, it is in Christ, Your dear Son, that I understand the power of Your love. Even one day of suffering on the part of a withered hand is noteworthy to You. You have cataloged every cell and known the pains of each. You are more in tune with our suffering that are we ourselves. I will give You the praise, for Your way is the right way. You know what we need, and You can make life, even out of death. In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.

Luke 6:8

   In this verse we find one of the great features of the Deity of Christ. Now, this is an issue. Many will argue against my interpretation here. But, Jesus did, and can, read people’s thoughts.
   I realize that the text doesn’t specifically say it that way. But please keep in mind the feeding of the five thousand isn’t explained in such detail either. We know the food was multiplied, but the specifics of when exactly it happened are not spelled out. Indeed, the miracle we have here of the withered hand being healed is the same way. We are told it became whole, but the exact details of how that looked as it was occurring are not spelled out in so many words.
   Jesus knew their thoughts. If this was just a case where one human knew what another human was thinking at the moment, it would have been worded differently. In fact, this isn’t the only time that Jesus is said to know what someone is thinking. Of course, many will say Jesus was just a really good guesser. But it is more than that. Jesus illustrated time and again that He had a more than human understanding of His contemporaries.
   I make a big deal of this point because it is very comforting. The fact of the matter is that Jesus alone knows your thoughts. Being God, Jesus knows every thought your have ever had, even the ones you have long since forgotten. But nobody else has this power. Many people think the devil can read their thoughts, but this simply isn’t the case. Nothing in Scripture indicates that the devil can read your thoughts. Even in the case of possession, something that can happen to unsaved persons, there is a part of them that the devil can never completely overtake. No, the devil is just a really good guesser. He has had thousands of years of practice. He has vast resources and piles of information. Thus he can virtually read thoughts.
   But only the Lord can actually do it. So, when you are in your secret place, having your devotions with the Lord Jesus, remember that He alone knows all that goes on in your heart.

   Heavenly Father, I long to fellowship with You fully and deeply. Only You truly know me. You have all of my words, my thoughts, my desires, my ‘me’, all figured out. You really understand, you really see. Your power over me is so complete. It is not an artificial and imposed oppression. It is an absolute and functional condition. You are in the primary position because You are primary. Thank You for being the One that I can turn to. You are the True Perfection that we conceive of, but cannot completely fathom. In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.

Luke 6:7
   It is amazing to see the faithfulness humanity can display to religiosity.  The Scribes and Pharisees were not only very steeped in a religious institution of their own making, but also they were in positions of power in the Jewish community because of it. Here they are vigilant, very diligent, to be sure to catch all that Jesus did and said. This constant attention to Christ is exactly what His followers should give Him, only for totally different reasons.
   What would you and I see if we watched Him closely? Oh yes He is not here physically on earth at this time. But, He is still at work in His church. His healing is still performed in His body, the believers who are faithful to follow Him. For those who will ‘watch closely’ there is something to see. And, as the Jewish leaders would shortly discover, His logic is hard to resist.
   This is an important element of the Person of Christ that we easily overlook. We are very emotional beings, And Jesus is a person with emotions. But, as God, His are higher than ours. For the same reason, however, His reason, His power of logic, is higher than ours. Never did anyone hear what they expected to hear from the lips of Christ. He always brought home the point with a logic that defies our normal way of thinking.
   These men on this day were looking for a specific cause to make an accusation against Him. But the truth is that had His logic been less than perfect, He would already have supplied them with all of the fodder to blast His ministry away. As it stands, even our world of advanced science and high achievement still struggles against the irresistible, irrefutable logic of the carpenter from Nazareth. I will call you to watch Him closely, don’t let Him out of your sight for a moment. For then you will see the overwhelming power and perfection of the LORD’s Christ.

   Heavenly Father, how can we refute Your Christ? We cannot resist Him. We cannot condemn Him. We cannot comprehend Him. We can only fall down in our brokenness and worship Him. He alone may fill the void we find in our souls as we search this world for the truth. If we are looking, watching closely, we can see not just what we want to see, or even just what we need to see, but beyond both, what we were made to see. You have given us a great gift that the most mighty of your celestial creations has not to boast of, we may see and know and by the Spirit begin to understand the Lord Jesus Christ. What a privilege! In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.

Luke 6:6
On another Sabbath. It is once a week that we are reminded of all that He is and has been. Though the LORD wants to meet with us every day, one day a week is asked of those who claim to be people of faith to remember His claim on all of our days. It may seem strange for the Sabbath to be a time of strife in the life of Christ. But, compared to all of history it fits quite accurately. The LORD still strives with the religious man at least one day a week. This formal ritual actually serves as a reminder that more than formal ritual is needed. Sunday in our church age is also intended not to be merely a formal practice, but a reminder of the uselessness of such. It is truly to be a reminder that He is still there, and still wants to speak with us.

Heavenly Father, help us to remember that Sunday is about You, not about us. Thank you for Your mercy and grace upon us. Give us opportunities to bring praise to You! In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.

John 3:16

   Recently I ran into the best English translation of the first few words of the old beloved John 3:16. The CSB (Christian Standard Bile – which is the Holman revised) reads as follows: “For God loved the world in this way:” Now, though the rest of the verse in the CSB is fine, it is this portion that really shines. I have for years wondered why this was not translated correctly. Indeed, depending on how you take the word ‘so’ it has been right in the KJV for years. However, our words change meaning over time, mainly losing meaning.
   Why does this understanding of the verse make such a difference? I’m glad you asked. In John 3 Jesus is not telling Nicodemus that God loves him. Nicodemus knew that. That would be like telling a schoolteacher what the alphabet is. No, he was telling Nicodemus HOW God loves. This is so very important, and is often missed even today. Over 2000 years later we still often fail to see HOW God loves us. Oh we have lots of people around still who believe that God loves them. In fact many people have stopped believing in God because they thought He didn’t love them. Indeed, many want to boil all of Christianity down to that one thing, love for all. We hear, God loves you, so you should love others. It all sounds so nice, and is seen as quite orthodox. But, does God love us? Is that what the Bible says?
   The answer is a resounding yes! He does indeed. In fact John says in his gospels that God IS love. But, HOW does He love us? This is of utmost importance. Jesus, and all He is and has done, and shall ever do, is the manner in which God loves us. In other words, Jesus being sent to us is the expression of God’s love. Have you ever loved someone sincerely only to be snubbed? You wanted to help them, love them, do good for them. But, instead they turned away. This is what happens with God. People want God to love them. But He does it in His way. This is the nature of love. It is only as good as the genuineness of the lover. It is only as precious as the value of the lover. It is only as influential as the faithfulness of the lover.
   Sending Christ to save us for all of eternity is the manner in which God has loved us. If we fail to receive that salvation, we fail to receive that love. People don’t go to hell because they are sinners. We die because we are sinners. People don’t go to hell because God wants to send them there. People go to hell because God has opened His arms in love by sending His own Son to pay the price for sin, and they have said ‘no thanks’ and moved on without receiving the free gift.
   This moves me on to one other observation. Many throughout Christian history have had a couple of things backwards. We say God is good. And by that many of us mean to say that there is this universal concept of good, and that God is the ultimate manifestation of it. Well that is just backwards. Good doesn’t define God, God defines good. Jesus said it when He said God alone is good. He means that you cannot separate the two. Without God we would have no conception of good because any conception of good without God would be absolutely meaningless. Without Him my good becomes my good and your good becomes your good and never shall they meet again. The definition becomes just as likely bad as bad can become good too if God is left out.
   Also, love is the same way. Love does not define God, God defines love. John also explains this to us. He says God IS love. Is love God? No. But without God, love is meaningless. It comes in only as a certain creature seeing the good of others as his own ultimate good, and thus love is as selfish as hate depending on the mood at the moment. But, if God defines love, that is something else again. By Him we can see it and know it and express it as it should be. And in John 3:16 we find expressed to us the highest and greatest of all that love is or ever shall be. That is, HOW God loves us.

Luke 6:5 “And He said to them, “The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”

   This is one of Jesus’ most direct claims to deity. The Sabbath commemorates the rest of the Godhead following the creation activity. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath because He gives it its meaning. It is this passage and others like it that explain why we now worship on Sunday. Just as Saturday marks His work of creation, Sunday marks His work of redemption.

Heavenly Father, we abundantly thank you for the Lord Jesus. We will follow His leading and wisdom. We will look to advance His kingdom. We will eagerly await His return. May we be granted the blessing to bring many to Him! In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.

Long Sabbatical

   This is the longest break from posting that I have ever taken. It has been a time of refreshing. I hope to return to blogging with new zeal and insight.