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Luke 4:32 “And they were astonished at His teaching, for His word was with authority.”

   The amazing acts of Christ were not limited to miracles and such. His most amazing characteristic was His teaching. The authority mentioned here reflects two things in His teaching. For one, Jesus is a powerful wordsmith. Nobody puts it quite like He does. Among all of the great orators and philosophers of history, His words stand out, and stand the tests of time. Secondly, He had different things to say than anyone had said. His doctrine, meaning the understanding of Scripture behind His words, was impeccable. Rather than appealing only to the flesh, the mind, or the heart, He spoke also directly to the spirit of man. His words were impossible to refute, and cut deep.

Heavenly Father, we will forever be grateful for Christ! May Your truth fill our hearts to overflowing each and every day! We need Your word in our minds and hearts. We need our spirit empowered by Your Spirit. Thank You! In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.

Luke 4:31 “Then He went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and was teaching them on the Sabbaths.”

   He taught on the Sabbaths. What did He do the rest of the time? Though He may have saved up enough to not have to work for a while, we cannot be certain of that. Indeed, he may have had the care of His mother to look out for at some point, though there is no certainty on that point either. The truth is we know very little about His day-to-day life. What we do know is that He was taking the time to teach.

Heavenly Father, thank You for the Lord Jesus. Give us a heart to follow Him. Your faithfulness, dear Lord, is so wonderful! We know You are the Great Physician, and that You can fix our problems. But, so often we do not understand how You go about it. Lead us to the truth. In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.

Luke 4:30 “Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way.”

   Don’t miss this for what it is. Jesus supernaturally moved Himself out of the situation. We think of the crucifixion as the point where sinful humanity had had enough of the truth of Christ. But that is not the case at all. If Jesus had not driven towards it, mankind would have had plans for Him far earlier. But, falling off a cliff would not fulfill prophecy, so Jesus avoids that fate.

Heavenly Father, thank You for giving us Your truth! Give to us eyes to see what should be seen. Give us ears and a heart open to You. May Your Spirit fill Your church with plain truth of Your Word! In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.

Luke 4:29 “and rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff.”

   Due to the escape of Christ from this attempt on His life, we tend to gloss over the seriousness of it. But, the reality is that this was serious. They did not somehow do this half-heatedly. They had every intention of throwing Jesus off the cliff. Without supernatural power, Jesus would not have escaped this attempt. Thus, the Jews would have put to death their Messiah at this early state in His ministry.

Heavenly Father, we will thank You for Jesus for all of eternity. So many Jews and Gentiles alike have found Him to be the savior of their souls. How can we ever show You our gratitude? But we will try by our feeble attempts, and trust to Your power to make our praise the sound You love to hear. Forever we will know that Jesus is our Anchor and Rock. To Him we will look for everything. In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.

Luke 4:28 “So all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,”

   Ah, we people are always like this! Slow we are to receive the truth, but so quick to judge what we find to be offensive. He had just told them that He was the fulfillment of prophecy and they heard gladly. But, when He got more specific, still commenting on plain truths of Scripture that they could not refute, they change their tune entirely.

Heavenly Father, thank You for Your mercy in making Your truth available. You already know how it will be received. It is of Your mercies that we are not consumed. Your compassion does not fail. You are great, and so is Your faithfulness! In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.

Luke 4:27 “”And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”

   Once again, was it something especially deserving in Naaman that caused him to be chosen? No. If anything the Lord orchestrated these two miracles during His time pre-incarnation partially to be mentioned on this occasion. Or, even the opposite could be the case. This is difficult, if not impossible to express. But, though we never think this way, we must remember that what the Lord Jesus does He does eternally. In other words, with all of eternity in mind.
   What I mean is that we will do things with potential future results in mind. However, we never think of the implications in relation to past history. And, we cannot be certain of the implications in the future, no matter how good our guess might be. So, when Jesus does something, He doesn’t do it presently (in the here and now only) as you and I. Instead, He does it eternally, knowing how it plays into all of everything, everywhen.

Heavenly Father, thank You for how You take care of us. We are awed by how You control all of the universe, which is largely out of our reach. But, yet You also control all of eternity, which is out of our frame of time. We can only begin to fathom what is to You common and ordinary. Nothing for You is past, present, or future. It is all now to You. What a Wondrous Person You are! In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.

Luke 4:26 “but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath, in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.”

   Is Jesus then suggesting that God chose this woman on purpose? Was there not something uniquely desperate about her condition? Was she not notably needful in some way? It seems clear that Jesus is not only suggesting, but flat out revealing, the intentions of Almighty God in this case. Elijah was not sent to the widows in Israel for the same reason that Jesus would be rejected among His own. The need was great, but the faith was almost non-existent.
   One may now seek to explain that because faith comes from God, it is He that chose to weaken the faith of the Jews. And they would be only partly right. God, in His infinite foresight, already knew the disobedience of the hearts before the faith was dispensed. Thus the weak faith only matched the weak will to respond. Again one will say that the will to respond is all from God as well. Again they would only be partly right. He gives man the ability to will for himself. And so we may choose to will to disobey. To miss this, one would have to completely ignore the first few chapters of Genesis.

Heavenly Father, we can gain no glory for the choices we make. It is of Your mercy that we are not consumed. It is You Who has chosen to uphold the upright in heart. It is by Your standard that our obedience is judged. Some will respond, and some will not, this we know. But we choose, as we are able, to respond. We will give You the praise and honor. We will ask You to strengthen our faith. In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.

Luke 4:25 “But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land;”

   Time and again Jesus had things to say about Scripture that nobody else would have thought of. He had a way of putting things that really got people’s attention. It is God’s Word that is a great comfort and mercy to us. He will explain His truth to us and give us what we need for our lives.

Heavenly Father, thank You for Christ, Who is Your Word! You are so merciful to us to give Him to us. You are wise and good. You know that we need Your truth in our lives each day. Thank You for that! You understand our weakness, You lift us up by Your power. In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.

Luke 4:24 “Then He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.”

   Being very familiar to them, the people of this location did not see Jesus in the same light as others. As Jesus indicates, this is true for anyone. Familiarity can be a detriment to faith. Many persons, being very comfortable and familiar with their surroundings, will never have strong faith because they feel safe right where they are. Often faith is grown and challenged when change must be taken up.

Heavenly Father, may we always be strong in faith! Give to us many opportunities to honor Your Name this Christmas season. Thank You for making Your Word so available to us. We will long for Your wisdom all of our days. In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.

Luke 4:23 “He said to them, “You will surely say this proverb to Me,`Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in Your country.'”

   Jesus knew what they would throw at Him. He understands how people think. Like the rest of the Jews, these folks in His hometown would ask for a sign. But, they would not want to be behind on His list. They wanted front row seats rather than being able to believe any of the reports about Him.
   But, therein lies the difficulty. If they could not believe the reports, they would not all believe if He did wondrous works right there before them. We are not asked to believe the gospel firsthand, but secondhand. The Lord has called us to listen to the report of those who have gone on before.

Heavenly Father, we realize You are at work even if we don’t always seem to see the front lines. You have not chosen to show us everything all the time. But, we know You are moving and blessing among humanity all over this globe, and we want to be an active part of that. Thank You for using us as You do. We will bring all of the praise to You as we work in our little corner of Your great fields of harvest. In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I pray and praise You, Amen.