Luke 13:1-21 What causes difficulty and suffering in your life? Is it your personal sin? Is it the sin of others? Is it the brokenness of the world? It is often difficult to pinpoint one specific cause, but what is certainly true—and experienced by all of us— is we live in a broken world. Luke directs our attention to some Galileans who were murdered, a tower that fell and killed eighteen people, ...

Luke 12:35-59 Ready, set, go! All races begin with this instruction. This saying is especially true in sprints because how quickly someone gets out of the starting blocks can mean the difference between victory and defeat. As in a race, so we are to be ready for Christ’s return. We need to have eyes open and ears listening. Jesus tells multiple parables in Luke 12 about his return. The main takeaw...

Luke 12:8-34 One of the most common themes Jesus teaches is on money. Luke 12 challenges us to open up our wallet, savings account, and investment portfolio for God to see, a very practical thing indeed. Jesus’ overarching teaching in Luke 12 is we must not be consumed by greed, but value things of God over things of the world. He first warns the rich they must not be the kind of person “who store...

Luke 11:37-12:7 Do you find yourself more focused on having a transformed heart or simply external conformity? It is far easier to blend in to the behavior of God’s people than to gain a heart that reflects the love and grace of God. Jesus speaks to the greater value of our hearts than simply our behavior in Luke 11. Jesus addresses the most religious people of his day, the Pharisees. They were th...

Luke 11:14-36 We live in a spiritually saturated world. God is at work and so is Satan. Angels are ministering to people, and demons are seeking to wreak havoc. Are you aware of this reality? In verse thirty-four Jesus says, “Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light.” He says we need to see things accurately to live in right response to what...

Luke 10:38-11:13 Do you have a spiritual mentor? Someone who models and teaches you how to follow God? This is one of the key roles Jesus played for his disciples. They watched his perfect life and often asked questions about what he was doing. One of Jesus’ common practices was to go off and pray, sometimes by himself, and other times with his disciples. After one of these moments, a disciple ask...

Luke 10:13-37 We learn at a young age how to make excuses. We become adept at blaming others or rationalizing our disobedience. “It was too hard”, “I did not have enough time”, or “I forgot” are phrases spoken often at my house and probably yours as well. One area we might make excuses is how well we love people. We often want to think we are more loving than we are. In this condition, we easily j...

Luke 9:51-10:12 Jesus “resolutely set out for Jerusalem” despite knowing that path led to death. He was willing to do the Father’s will no matter what it cost or where it took him. Similarly, we are called to do God's mission in God's way. The disciples liked the idea of doing God's mission, but they had their own plans of how it should have been done. Notice verse 54 when James and John ask Jesus...

Luke 9:28-50 What does prayer look like in your life? Is it a central part of your life, something that is on the periphery, or something that is largely absent? Notice the role that prayer plays in Jesus’ ministry and that of the disciples. Jesus is consistently going off to pray and we see this in verse 28. In contrast, we have the disciples who are self-reliant. They have become so accustomed t...

Luke 9:7-27 How do you feel when your plans get interrupted? Do you get frustrated, angry, or upset? Jesus made plans to get away with his disciples in verse 10. They went to have some quiet time by themselves but end up being interrupted by a massive throng of people. The disciples responded by asking Jesus to send them away. They liked their alone time and were frustrated that it had been thwart...

Luke 8:40-9:6 Luke 8 introduces us to two people who faced circumstances that they could not change on their own. There is Jairus whose daughter was sick. He ran to Jesus so she might be healed. How excited he must have been when Jesus started to head toward his house, but then how deflated he must have been to hear that she was dead. The second impossible situation is that of the woman who had de...

Luke 8:22-39 Who does God use to do his will? Are there things in your past that are keeping you from boldly proclaiming Christ to others? As we see in Luke 8, God can use everyone as his ambassador. Through Jesus’ ministry he used a motley crew of fishermen, a tax collector, people with widely differing political philosophies, and a huge mix of people as his disciples. Today he similarly uses plu...

Luke 8:4-21 Do you ever wonder why Jesus repeats things so often? The Gospel writers do so as well. Luke 4 repeats the parable of the soils which we have already come across in both Matthew and Mark. This parable speaks to the critical nature of one’s response to Jesus. Some people will hear the word of God but it will be snatched away quickly. These people with short attention spans will hear but...

Luke 7:36-8:3 Do you ever feel like you are not good enough or wonder how God can love you because of what you have done? The end of Luke 7 introduces us to a “woman who had lived a sinful life.” A woman who was looked down upon by others and viewed only as a sinner by the Pharisees. Yet notice what she does, she comes right up to Jesus and is accepted by him. Though she is a sinner she understand...

Luke 7:11-35 What excuses do people have for their lack of faith in Jesus? What evidence do they claim they would need to believe? In Jesus’ day many people struggled with believing Jesus truly was the Messiah. Even John the Baptist, when he was in prison needed confirmation about Jesus despite having baptized him and acknowledging him as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Part ...

Luke 6:39-7:10 What would you say are the biggest issues which are keeping people from coming to faith in Christ? Sadly, one of the biggest obstacles to accepting Christianity is… well, Christians. We would like to believe that the world is pulling people away, because it is too painful to think that we might be the blockade standing in the way of them coming to Christ. Fess up. When you read toda...

Luke 6:12-38 How close would you say that your perspective of things matches God’s? We see a few potential challenges to our perspective in Luke 6. When Jesus is about to make a big decision about his disciples, he goes off and spends time with the Father. There is nothing wrong with getting advice from others and doing research, but are you talking to God about the decisions you make? If our pers...

Luke 5:29-6:11 I talked with a man recently who called himself a religious person. He summarized his religious belief as doing unto others, as he would want done to him. As impressive as this ethic is, it falls short of the relationship with Christ to which we are called. When we look at the life of Jesus, we find him surprisingly in conflict with good, religious people who got so caught up in rul...

Luke 5:12-28 What are your biggest needs? If you could snap your fingers and instantly have a problem fixed, what would be your request? Throughout Jesus’ ministry people came to him with their problems. We see a man in Luke 5 who comes to Jesus with leprosy and is instantly cleansed. We then see a second individual carried on a mat by a group of friends. This paralytic was brought to Jesus so tha...

Luke 4:31-5:11 Often toddlers refuse assistance despite their inability to perform simple tasks. Then as those toddlers turn into teenagers, they assume their parents have nothing to teach them. Sadly, as we move into adulthood, we continue to think that we know everything, when we do not. This is revealed by the fact that one of the reasons Jesus came to Earth was to teach us. Every one of us. Of...