8:2 - I love the attitude of the leper here...he doesn't come up begging or demanding to be healed...he says, "If it is your will, let me be healed." Do I go into my prayer life and my relationship with God with a focus on God's will or mine? Is our relationship about me trying to get God on board with my plans, or about me desperately trying to get my life aligned with God's will? I want to strive for the latter.
8:10 - Jesus marveled at a man's faith! Talk about a compliment. The Roman centurion had such incredible, life-altering faith that the Son of God marveled at him. If you were the one forming the universe with your hands, it seems like it would take something unbelievable to cause you to marvel...to Jesus the amazing is a sold out faith. We spend our lives chasing after being incredible, being the best, being a cut above...but being incredible has nothing to do with looks or talent or possessions; truly amazing living comes from trusting fully in God. May I have the guts to do that.
8:17 - More fulfilled prophecy...again, Jesus is who he said he was - deal with it.
8:20 - Jesus was homeless and completely unconcerned with worldly possessions...we on the other hand find ourselves in the richest 2% of the world with the biggest housing square footage per capita on earth and a penchant for being completely absorbed with "stuff." Is there anything wrong with that picture?
8:22 - This seems like a completely harsh statement by Jesus, "Let the dead take care of themselves." I have heard this explained by talking about how the Jewish mourning process would take a long time and maybe the father wasn't even dead yet...so the guy could be talking about years. That sounds like a good explanation, maybe that's right. But maybe, Jesus is just really stinking serious about walking his path now. There will always be something in your life that you can use as an excuse to put off giving Jesus everything...at some point you have to choose. Jesus knew he had a short time on earth and that guy was about to miss the party. Do I let really good excuses get in the way of giving him everything?
8:31 - I find it pretty interesting that Jesus even showed mercy to a group of demons. Maybe I should remind myself of that the next time I'm feeling like somebody doesn't deserve my mercy.
8:34 - Jesus performs an exorcism on the wild demon possessed guys that keep everybody from coming into town, and the grateful town greets him at the city gates to throw a party, right? Oh, yeah that's right, they bar him from coming in and ask him to leave. Maybe they were really happy with the status quo, and didn't want anything to change. The power and message of Christ have a way of utterly destroying status quos. Are there areas of my life that I like to bar Jesus from, so that I can just "keep on keeping on"? Are there areas that I don't want to change? Time to open the gates.
2 comments:
The humility of the centurion always gets me – realizing who Jesus is (the centurion is Roman – not Jewish), coming to ask for His help (centurions don’t go – they make people come to them), and declining a visit from Jesus because he feels unworthy (a Roman leader feels unworthy).
About the demon possessed guys and the pigs. A lot of people gloss over one little part in verse 29 – not the fact that the evil spirits know who Jesus is, but the fact that they know that Jesus is going to come back one day at the appointed time to torture them. In one sentence, they covered a good portion of Revelation because they know Jesus is supposed to come back and give them what they deserve. Unreal...
Also, after Jesus casts the demons out, the people of the town ask Him to leave. They are more concerned with the loss of their pigs than the fact that 2 of their own have been helped by Christ. Again – unreal…and yet – it’s all true.
I wonder how many times people I have known have been helped by God and I’m too busy with worldly things to even notice. Hopefully less and less as I get older...
j
Can I be with humility like this centurion? Can I be humble enough to realize who I am in the big scheme of things and live my life like it? Father, I thank you for who you are and how you encourage me daily through several means. I ask that you keep me and my accountability partners aware of me ever getting a big head about this. Humility is what has gotten me this far, and what will get me farther.
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