Even Though

Even Though

“Therefore, let him who thinks he

stands, take heed lest he fall.”

                   I Corinthians 10:12

Teaching the Book of Luke in the Philippines was an eye-opener for many reasons as many of the parables and stories that I’ve taught many times before seemed to have a new freshness. One challenging thought follows below. Consider this man:

• He took part in handing out the loaves and the fish, seeing five thousand and later four thousand miraculously fed by the power of God. When they were done, he also helped to gather the many basketfuls of fragments that were left over.

• As he was entering the city of Nain along with a crowd of people, he saw Jesus, moved with compassion, stop a funeral procession and raise a grieving widow’s only son back to life.

• He experienced the fear of being in a boat during a storm and seeing it filling with water, only to have Jesus get up, rebuke the wind and the raging waves, and calm the storm.

• He looked on as demons were cast out of the man with a “legion” of spirits, sent into a herd of swine, only to see the swine rush down an embankment and all drown. And if that wasn’t enough, the man out of whom the spirits were cast out became a new person right before him, sitting at Jesus’ feet and in his right mind.

• He was one of the twelve sent out by Jesus to preach the good news and to heal the sick, and experienced being used by God and having the power of God flow through him as he ministered in city after city.

• He heard the truth preached for a three and a half year period, sermons, parables, and stories that were so anointed that no one could speak a word after Jesus had finished sharing them.

• He looked on as Lazarus was raised from the dead, as a woman crippled for eighteen years was healed, as the blind received their sight back, as the deaf had their hearing restored, and so much more.

You would think that with all those experiences, with getting to be a part of so much that God was doing through Jesus, with seeing what he saw and hearing what he heard, that this man’s life would have been perfectly on track. And you would be wrong. This man’s name was Judas – the Judas who betrayed the Lord, in part because he never let the Lord deal with the covetousness in his heart.

With that in mind, let’s each walk humbly before the Lord, allowing Him to speak to our hearts, being open to change, sometimes radical change in the way we are serving the Lord and, most importantly, not thinking more highly of ourselves than is wise.

God Bless
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church