Author: emmanuelpcgateshead

MONDAY October 28^th

 

As I continue with the theme of these devotions, ‘Jesus the very thought of thee’ I am continuing with Luke 4 and what was said about Jesus after he had spoken the words from the prophet Isaiah. Luke 4:20-22 ‘And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke well of him and marvelled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?”’

 

Jesus has stood up, he had read from Isaiah, he sat down and then he spoke these words, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’.

 

It would have been a great honour to have been in that synagogue on that day and to have listened to Jesus and to have literally seen scripture being fulfilled in front of you, and it says that those in attendance spoke well of him and marvelled at his gracious words. Something about this man Jesus had an impact on them, but then they started questioning concerning who he really was, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’

 

Now Jesus must have heard some of the conversation because he then challenges them in the following verses, which lead us to verses 28-29 where they were no longer astonished, but rather enraged, filled with wrath, and they drove him out of the town, determined to throw him over a cliff. Wow, what a change of heart!

 

When it comes to the message and the person of Jesus, we see the same thing today, there are those who are astonished and amazed such as we whose blind eyes have been opened, and there are those who are full of fury and rage, they may not show it openly, but they show it by their continual rejection of him. They question who Jesus really is, and they reject him out of hand.

 

And we could say today concerning our nation, that whereas in our recent history, Jesus was welcomed in our classrooms, in our families, in our government, and many of us can recall that we could hold a Sunday School or a children’s club and the children in the local community would willingly come in, but not today unless you are giving out social handouts.

See who Jesus is and what he has come to proclaim no longer suits the agenda of our society, his morals, his righteousness no longer fits in with the lifestyle our society wants to live and the ideology it wants to promote. Just as the crowd wanted to throw Jesus over a cliff, our modern secular society has thrown Jesus out.

 

More than ever before we who have come to love Jesus and chosen to live according to his standards need to proclaim Jesus. Reaffirming in our hearts and by the very lives that we live that Jesus is Lord and that in the words of the hymn I am basing these thoughts on, that the very thought of him, with sweetness fills our breast. The same hymn continues, ‘Jesus, our only joy be thou, as thou our prize wilt be; Jesus, be thou our glory now, and through eternity.’

FRIDAY October 25^th

 

Luke 4:18-19

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

 

I will conclude looking at these verses today and first at the phrase ‘recovering of sight to the blind’. And again, we see this as having a double meaning for we read in the gospels that Jesus did literally give sight or restore sight to those who were physically blind, and as wonderful as that was, it is more wonderful that he came to give spiritual sight to all who are spiritually blind! That’s you and that is me!

 

If we jump forward a little to after Jesus had ascended back to heaven, we are all familiar of the account in Acts 9 where Saul on the road to Damacus was blinded after an encounter with Jesus, and then his sight was restored after Ananias had prayed for him. Later when Saul who became known as Paul was recalling what had happened, he told of what Jesus had said he was being called to do ‘But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me’, Act 26:16–18.

 

The gospel is all about having our spiritual eyes opened so that we come from out of spiritual darkness into the light of the gospel, and to be set free from the power of sin and of Satan.

 

I think we would have to conclude that the manifesto that Jesus was commissioned to fulfil is the best that has ever been written and the best that has ever been fulfilled! Yet like Paul, we too have the responsibility of sharing the gospel so that the eyes of those around us will also be opened to see the wonderful truth of the message of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

The final statement that Jesus made was ‘to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour’ well, in the words of a hymn we sometimes sing. Praise my soul the King of heaven. . . praise him for his grace and favour’.

 

The time of God’s favour is still upon us, and I end the devotion with some Scripture, words written by the apostle Paul, especially for any who may read this devotion and yet have not responded to the Lord Jesus Christ:

 

‘Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, “In a favourable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the favourable time; behold, now is the day of salvation,”’ 2 Corinthians 6:1-2

THURSDAY October 24^th

 

Luke 4:18-19

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

 

As we continue to consider his manifesto that Jesus read out from the prophet Isaiah, the next two phrases which I will combine together are ‘He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives. . . to set at liberty those who are oppressed’

 

There is a double sense to this and to the rest of what follows, for we see as Jesus went about the various towns and villages that he did bring liberty to the captive.

 

First, we can say it wasn’t perhaps quite what they were expecting, for they thought he had come to deliver them from the rule of the Roman Empire, but he had come to deliver them from something that was far more debilitating to them. He had come to set those who were oppressed or possessed by the devil and demons free. We can see this on several occasions in the gospels, in Mark 1:34 it says ‘He healed many . . . and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.’ But we will just highlight one of the occasions, found again in Mark’s gospel and it is concerning the man who lived in the tombs who could not be controlled because of an unclean, evil spirit that had gotten hold of him. He was bound by the devil, and he was bound by chains and shackles because the people could do nothing about it. But Jesus met him, and Jesus challenged the unclean spirit, which turned out to be many and at the command of Jesus the unclean spirits left the man. He was set free, a fulfilment of the manifesto of Jesus that he had come to set the captive free. A song I mentioned recently, ‘When Jesus comes the tempters’ power is broken!’

 

But there is an even more powerful application, for each one of us are bound in sin, we are born that way, and we needed to be set free, and because of the precious blood of Jesus being shed at Calvary for each one of us, we can know what it is as captives of Satan to be set free. In the words of another song, ‘It’s your blood that sets me free!’ I was a captive to Satan and sin, but Jesus has set me free, he has given to me a living and a permanent hope, what about you?

 

And in the gospel of John 8:36, we read ‘So if the Son (that is Jesus) sets you free you will be free indeed’! And Paul wrote in Romans 8:1 ‘There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death’.

WEDNESDAY October 23^rd

 

Luke 4:18-19

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

 

I wonder how many of us actually read and scrutinized the manifestos which the various political parties published before the recent elections in the United Kingdom, but perhaps more importantly, how genuine would any of them have been in keeping to the manifesto, and how well is the party that won the election doing with regard to what they claimed they would do—I’ll let you answer that last question for yourself, I best keep silent on the matter!

 

In our verses today as I mentioned a few devotions ago Jesus is letting the folk in the synagogue know what his manifesto was, which had been written for him almost 700 years previously through the prophecy of Isaiah. Now although I’ve used the word manifesto, we would usually call it his mission, the reason or purpose for which he come from heaven to earth, and as he completed the mission he returned back to heaven, and the good news is that his short visit of 33 years, and in particular the last few days has resulted in access being made available for men and women who come to believe in him to also be bound for heaven.

 

The first thing that Jesus said that he had come to do was to declare good news to the poor! And to understand who the poor are we need to look and see what Jesus said as he spoke from the mountain as he embarked on the preaching part of his mission, it is in Matthew 5:3 ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’.

 

The poor are those who have known what it is to have become poor in spirit, that is on hearing the good news of the gospel, that we come to realise that in and of ourselves we are nothing, we are hopeless and helpless, but we recognize that all our hope is to be found in Jesus. It is those who have come to an end of themselves, and in the words of the song say ‘Nothing in my hands I bring simply to the cross I cling’.

 

See the good news of the gospel is for all, but sadly not all will believe it or accept it, many in the past, many today and many in the future, have hearts that are too proud to be broken, they will not humble themselves and become poor in spirit and accept Jesus and the incredible offer of salvation, they will not respond positively to the good news which Jesus not only announced he had come to bring, but for which he died to provide.

 

How about you today? The good news is for you, Jesus was true to his manifesto, he suffered and died on the cross to bring about eternal redemption, humble your heart today, come in repentance and accept Jesus as your Saviour.

TUESDAY October 22^nd

 

Luke 4:18-19

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

 

These words that Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah are to be found in Isaiah 61:1-2 and I quote them here ‘The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favour’.

 

Now Luke tells us that Jesus rolled up the scroll at this point and gave it back to the attendant, but in Isaiah the paragraph continues with the following, ‘and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion—to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified’. Now this is just up to the end of verse 3 and it continues with more in the rest of the chapter.

 

Why did Jesus’ stop reading where he did and why didn’t he continue to read ‘and the day of vengeance of our God’. The answer is that at that time, Jesus had only come to fulfil the section that he had read out, he had not at that time come to execute God’s vengeance on the earth, he had come to demonstrate God’s love, God’s mercy and God’s grace, he had come to bring the opportunity for repentance, for salvation and for healing, he had come to be the Saviour of the world.

 

Now if the prophecy of Isaiah is to be fulfilled through Jesus, then it means that there is yet more to be fulfilled, and that which Jesus left out on that occasion in the synagogue in Nazareth will yet be fulfilled as he comes again the second time, not to be a sacrifice for sins, but to bring about that which will usher in the vengeance of God upon the nations and the peoples who have failed to respond and believe for salvation. And if you read the remaining verses in Isaiah 61 you will see that God still has a plan to be accomplished among the nation of Israel.

 

The times we are living in could be considered as frightening times if we see it simply through the eyes of the unbelieving world, but as we see them through the eyes of biblical prophecy, they are exciting times as that which was prophesied many hundreds, even thousands of years ago is being fulfilled literally before our eyes as we watch the news channels each day.

 

The day of God’s vengeance is near, we need to ensure that each one of us has made ourselves right with God, through the offer of salvation that Jesus has and only Jesus has made possible for us. Believe on him, trust him, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through the Lord Jesus Christ.

MONDAY October 21^st

 

We have arrived today at what I called the ‘synagogue moment’ a few devotions back in Luke 4 and verses 16-21 ‘And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”’

 

Jesus had just spent a busy time following on from the wilderness experience teaching in the synagogues in Galilee, but now we see from verse 16 that he had come home to Nazareth. The next couple of words are important: ‘And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day’, I want to include here in this devotion something that I have mentioned often, but bears mentioning again, if Jesus is truly the example we want to follow, then we need to get back into the habit of making it our custom to attend the house of the Lord on the Lord’s day! Too many today somehow do not see the need for and the importance of being regular in fellowship with other believers, and sadly some have gotten into the bad habit of watching online since Covid instead of getting back into a place of fellowship with others. To quote from Hebrews 10:24-25 ‘And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.’

 

In the Old Testament, we read in Psalm 122:1 ‘I was glad when they said unto me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord”’.

 

On this occasion, as Jesus went to the synagogue, we read that he stood up to read and he was given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and he found a particular portion and began to read it. Can I suggest that he was going to read out his manifesto!

 

As he read it out, he concluded with this ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’. In other words, when the prophet Isaiah spoke these words, he was speaking about me, I am the anointed one, I am the One sent from God, the Messiah whom you have been waiting for. ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.’

We will consider this statement in more detail over the next few days, but we can clearly see from these verses, that the Word who had become flesh, who in obedience to the words of the angel had been called Jesus, had a mission to fulfil, and the Spirit had anointed him to fulfil this mission.

 

Again, it reminds me of our verse for 2024, ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts’, and we will see how under the Spirit’s anointing Jesus went out to accomplish everything that he had been sent to do.

FRIDAY October 18^th

 

Luke 4:13

‘And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.’

 

Luke has only recorded three specific temptations, but he does say that for forty days, Jesus was being tempted by the devil. And the three recorded follow on from Luke saying, ‘And when they were ended’, that is the forty days. So, many other temptations would have taken place. And from our text today we can be sure that other temptations would have followed during the three ministry years of Jesus. But straight on from the verse today in verse 14 we read ‘And Jesus returned in the power of the Holy Spirit’.

 

Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit as he went into the wilderness experience and let’s note that he was also led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness experience, and there is no doubt that he was sustained by the Holy Spirit as he went through the wilderness experience, for he came though the other side of the experience in the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

O how we need the Holy Spirit in our lives today. Temptation is all around us, and in and of ourselves we would find it very difficult to avoid falling into the temptations, but the Holy Spirit equips us with power to say no and to be victorious. And not only so, when the disciples asked the Lord Jesus to teach them to pray, part of the prayer he encouraged them to say was ‘and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil’, and so we can pray each day that we will not fall into temptation. And then a third factor, of which we are reminded by the Hebrew writer is that Jesus as our example, has known what it is to be tempted in all points, that is in the many ways in which we are tempted, and yet he managed to remain without sin. Therefore, he is able to help us when we are tempted to overcome the temptations and to give us the enabling strength to be victorious, Hebrews 2:18, 4:15.

 

In one of the older hymns, the story is told of the man who sat by the roadside begging, and of how Jesus came by and met him and delivered him. The chorus of the hymn continues with:

 

When Jesus comes the tempter’s power is broken,

When Jesus comes the tears are wiped away,

He takes the gloom and fills the life with glory,

For all is changed when Jesus comes to stay.

 

The tempters power is broken! The devil has no control over us! if you know Jesus as your Saviour, learn to recognise the power that is available for you and I for myself to overcome the temptations that the devil throws out across our pathway. The same hymn has as the final verse

 

So men today (and women) have found the Saviour able,

They could not conquer passion, lust and sin,

Their broken hearts had left them sad and lonely,

Then Jesus came and dwelt, himself within.

 

Let us all allow the One who himself when tempted, yielded not into the temptation, help us to also not give in when being tempted and to stand strong.

THURSDAY October 17^th

 

Luke 4:9-13

‘And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written “‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.’

 

We come to the third of the temptations that have been recorded by Luke in his gospel, and this time it is to do with tempting Jesus to test God, by jumping off the pinnacle of the temple to see if God would send angels to save him. Notice how the devil knew Old Testament scripture, but he didn’t compare scripture with scripture, for yes, God could have sent his angels to save Jesus, but in the first place there was another important scripture which Jesus used in response, which was ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test’. The devil was quoting from Psalm 91:11 and Jesus from Deuteronomy 6:16.

 

The devil will always try to twist or misrepresent what God has said and what is written in the word of God It is exactly what he did with Eve when he asked her in the garden of Eden what it was that God had instructed them regarding the tree in the midst of the garden. And he will always try his best to misrepresent the word of God to us, he will try to distort the truth, or to dress something up to make it seem okay with the hope that we will take the bait and fall for it. As we saw a couple of days ago, we need to be careful, keeping our eye out for the traps that he will try to set up to catch us.

 

I am having a spot of bother with a mole in my garden at present, he seems to be able to avoid everything I do to try to trap him, he seems to be in a particular spot one moment, and then I discover that he is somewhere else, he is managing to evade me. We need to be like the mole and ensure that we evade the traps that the devil keeps putting up to catch us out, and following the example of Jesus we need to learn the word of God so that when Satan does tempt us, lure us and try to bring us down, we can quote the word of God, for there is an authority in the word that he will not be able to withstand.

And on another note, let us make sure that we don’t misquote or misrepresent scripture, but be faithful to a correct interpretation, ensuring we are comparing one scripture with another, to get the right balance and sound doctrine.

WEDNESDAY October 16^th

 

Luke 4:5-8

‘And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’”’

 

The second of the temptations which we have recorded in Luke’s gospel that the devil sought to distract Jesus with, was all about worship.

 

Imagine the cheek of the devil to try and get the Son of God, who is the Word in the flesh, that is God as a man to worship him. I thought to myself as I prepared this, ‘How stupid the devil must have been’ for Jesus who we have already discovered was about his Father’s business, would also have known the command that his Father had given to the children of Israel way back in the time of their wilderness experience, ‘I am the Lord your God. . . You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God . . .’ (Exodus 20:2-5).

 

Now, maybe the devil is stupid, but unfortunately, he is also subtle! And he will put whatever he can in front of you and I, position things in our lives that will if we are not careful cause us to take our eyes of the true and living God who deserves our full attention, and we become stupid! We begin to (and maybe we do not realise it) worship other things instead of making the worship of God our priority. We allow other things to become more important in our lives than being and becoming the person that God longs for us to be. And one of the biggest areas is when the devil will convince us that several other things are more important on a Sunday morning rather than making our way up to the house of the Lord where we join with others to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

 

Who or what do we seek after rather than to give 100% of our lives to the Lord God? What takes up priority in our lives that means that we cannot truly say that we are committed to loving the Lord God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our might. What have we allowed to be gods or idols in our lives that have distracted or diverted our attention from the One who not only deserves but has the right to demand, my soul, my life, my all.

TUESDAY October 15^th

 

Luke 4:1-4

‘And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’ ”’

 

We will consider today the first of the temptations that are recorded for us that Jesus was faced with as he spent the time in the wilderness. Notice it says that the three that are recorded happened at the end of the forty days. We don’t have a record of every attack that the devil would have brought to Jesus in the forty days, for there is no doubt that from day one, the devil would have sought to distract Jesus.

 

It is Peter who reminds us that the devil goes about like a roaring lion seeking out those who he can devour, (1 Peter 5:8). Adam faced the devil in the Garden of Eden, and he failed at the first hurdle (Genesis 3), but Jesus who became the second Adam, faced the devil in the wilderness and we are so grateful that he prevailed.

 

You and I are faced with the prowling devil every day, he will use his myriads to try to catch us out and to trip us up in so many different ways, it could be through our peers, it may even be through a family member, a work colleague, it could be through something we do, somewhere we go, even something we may read or watch.

 

Notice it says that Jesus was hungry, and so the temptation was to do with food. ‘Command these stones to become bread’. Whatever it is that we allow ourselves to hunger after, the devil will use it to try to tempt us, that is why we need to learn from the example of Jesus, and as he replied ‘Man shall not live by bread alone’ so we also must reply to the enemy of our soul, ‘we don’t live for the things that you have to offer me’ and then add to it the very words of Jesus himself which is that it is those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be the ones filled or satisfied.

 

Are you hungry today, and I mean spiritually hungry, don’t be tempted to be filled or satisfied with the things of the world, the carrot(s) that the devil dangles in front of you, the result will be that you will end up with a spiritual belly ache, you will be spiritually starved and end up spiritually dead. Jesus who is our example, who resisted the devil and the temptation to change the stones into bread, is himself the living bread , he is also the living water, feast on him, feast on his word and know what it is to be spiritually alive and spiritually satisfied.