April 9, 2020

April 9

Running with Jesus

Luke 14:1-2 And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him. And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy.

     A Sabbath day, a Pharisee, Jesus, and a man with a bad disease, talking about oil and vinegar, you have seen them sitting on the table and you shake it up to try to get it to mix, won’t happen! 

     It was the Sabbath day, I am sure the Pharisee had taken his “spiritual bath" in preparation for their worship. Interesting, Jesus was at his house to eat because at this time, runners, He was being watched because they wanted to kill Him. They were looking for some way to get Him to the courtroom. Having bathed, the religious wanted no part of a diseased man because they were considered sinners!  Jesus on the other hand had mercy on the man and healed him. The sick man was in front of them.  There are two ways to look at this, first we can get so "religious" and do "church" that we forget we are to be ministering to people.  We also can look at the Sabbath day that the religious leaders made as a ritual over a relationship with God and man. 

     Our church going must never take the place of our relationship with God the Father. Church is to be a privilege and a blessing that comes from your personal walk and never let our going soothe our conscience and neglect helping our sick. Jesus says our work is evidence of real faith! Test time! If all you do is ritual worship!, you better do a check up! He is about relationship with Him and relationship with our fellow man. Think about the cross! The vertical wood beam runs up and down, us to God. The horizontal beam runs side to side, us to our neighbors! Are you sure you have been to the cross for salvation or just "churched"? Churched people even know all the language but do not have the love of God in the heart and you will find them sitting and a lot of the time grumbling! Where do you fit in? Are you churched or do you have an intimate relationship with God? 

Father, help us to keep running with You and help our relationship to grow. Make us sensitive to other’s needs and ministries. Father, help us today to find a person we might not normally speak to or show kindness to. We don't want to be "churched" we want to be real!

Tomorrow: A lesson on being humble.

Judy Hollaway

Originally penned 2015