Jesus is walking with his disciples and giving them some instructions on what Kingdom life looks like – how they must live now that their allegiance is with Jesus and not with the world. As he instructs them on forgiveness they begin to get whinny. Jesus doesn’t soft pedal or try to appease them instead he tells them that this is not a democracy, but a Kingdom! Slaves do not have options and neither do we!
As they are traveling between Samaria and Galilee a group of ten lepers call out to Jesus from a safe distance begging for healing. They kept their distance as a way of protecting others from contracting the awful disease. Jesus tells them to go and show the priests and as they are on their way they find that they have been made well! One of the ten turns back and thanks Jesus for this amazing gift of healing – and he was a Samaritan! Jesus notices that only one of the ten returns to give thanks, and then only the foreigner. I wonder why only the Samaritan came back. Perhaps as a Samaritan he didn’t really care what the priests thought anyway.
Next Jesus is confronted with a question on the end times by a Pharisee. I wonder at Jesus answer when he says in verse 20 and 21, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or 'There it is!' For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you." In the following verses Jesus does seem to point to some “signs” of the end of the age.
How do you see the Kingdom of God among us today?
About Me
- Pastor Bill
- I am a committed follower of Jesus Christ, a happy husband, father and grandfather!
3 comments:
Isn't it great that Jesus is honest with us? At least there's no surprises, right? It seems in our society today, you really can't tell when someone is telling the truth! People typically try to "soft pedal" with us to make us think that things are easier than they seem, or more silver lined. I'm sure I've done the same for people. Don't have that trouble with Jesus. Guess that's why he's the man.
This leprosy thing is really interesting. People must have thought Jesus was crazy to go near these people, knowing how contagious the disease was. But the power of God heals these people. What about that Samaritan man? It makes you wonder:
How about in our lives, when we pray and pray and pray, and our prayers are answered. Do we - A. Go tell our parents, relatives, and friends or B. Thank/Praise God for what he has done.
I'd probably say 9/10 times we'd answer that A. then maybe 1/10 we'd answer A.
Could that be sorta something that may be hinted at with this story?
Eye-opening for me - GIVE credit where credit is do - Praise God!
And the final section:
We have so much here that we feel is so important to us. Will we look back? When do we go to sleep at night without unfinished business for the next day? Jesus tells us not to look back or go back for things, for we won't need them. I think it's a really interesting thought. No worries though, God will take care of us. Don't look back, and don't worry.
God bless all, g'night.
Marshall
Hey Marshall!
Good to be back on the board here with you!
Good thoughts on the 17th chapter - I also always apreciated the way Jesus tells us even the hard truth. Just tel me the truth, and I'll deal with it. Well, Jesus does just that.
I hope to see you soon friend1
Bill
"5 The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’ 6The Lord replied, ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea”, and it would obey you."
I always pause at this snippet. I think that we have only two options here then. Either 1) We don't have even mustard seed faith (since I've never uprooted a mulberry bush.) Or 2) We do have that much faith, and Jesus is telling us we already have all the faith we need to do something significant - we just aren't bothering to do it. I think it's more likely 2! We don't necessarily need more faith. We need to use the faith we have first.
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