The 4 Questions for Luke 6

— History

* Christ has been doing many marvelous miracles to the point that people are saying things like, “we have seen strange things today.” (5:26) Jesus had just Peter, James, John and Levi before this chapter and they have “left all” to follow Him. Some were fishermen, others were tax collectors. No matter the job they had, the Bible is sure to point out they “forsook all.” (5:11;27) Christ had just finished talking about being made new in chapter 5 by using the parable of the new and old bottles and garments. It seems He is trying to make a point that when you choose Christ, you are made new. You have a new job (5:10;28), a new family (5:34-35), and a new life (5:31;36-39).

–Theology

* The Lord desires us to commune with Him. (Luke 6:12)

Before Christ chose His twelve disciples, He spent the night in prayer talking to The Father. This prayer was in the mountain where no one else was. God desires to have us to focus on Him as we talk to Him. As we would not enjoy having a deeply personal conversation with our spouses in a public place where it is hard to focus on what the other is saying, so God as we speak to Him. God created man in the garden to have fellowship with Him. They would walk in the cool of the day and talk. (Gen 3:8) After the fall in Gen 3, that fellowship and communion man had with God was ruined. When the temple was built as a picture of God dwelling with His people, a veil was placed to block the Holy of Holies. (Where God was.) This was a picture of the fellowship that God once had with His creation was now destroyed.

*In verses 20-34 we can see more of what God desires us to do or be. (The reason I am putting this part here, is because we can learn a lot about God based on how He wants us to be. He wants us to be more like Him. These verses tell us more of Who He is.)

• God desires us to be poor, for His sake. Hungry, for his sake. To weep, for His sake. And to be hated for, His sake. (Luk 6:20-23) Does this mean that God is standing and waiting for us to be in misery and pain as we go through life? No! He desires devotion to Him. Who in their right mind would choose to be poor, hungry, and hated? The answer is no one. Yet, when you chose to give God that which is unnatural for our physical bodies to want to give, It shows Him where your heart truly is. This can be seen elsewhere in the Bible. When we find in Gen 22 that God asks Abraham to do something uncomfortable. Abraham in his devotion to God was willing to give to God his promised son.

*God desires us to love our enemies and do good to them that hate us. (Luk 6:27) This is the same as the poor, hungry and hated. It is not easy to love those that hate us but God is not asking us to do what He himself has not done. God is depicted in the OT as the husband who’s wife has betrayed Him and followed other Gods. Even though Israel hated Him, He still intervened and fought for them because He loved them. Luk 6:35-36 explains it so clearly that we don’t even really need to explain. We are to be merciful because He is merciful. We are to be kind because He is kind. He wants to to be as Him! We were created in His image. This means we bare His image and are to be “little Christs’”. Because of sin, though, we can’t do any of these things. Our natural sinful state desires our own and if we are able to be hungry, poor, weep and hated, it is not for His sake because of sin. If we try to do these things n our own power it is in vain.

— Fulfilled in Christ.

* It is because of Christ we are able to have fellowship and communion with The Father once again. After Christ shed His perfect blood on the cross for the sins of the world, the veil that once kept the sinner from coming to God in communion and fellowship was torn (Matt 27:51). Although because of sin, we are not perfectly restored until Christ comes again, we are still able to come to God in fellowship because of Jesus Christ.

*It is because of Jesus Christ we are able to reflect the character of our Creator once again. We are able to show Him the devotion He desires. We are able to be poor for His sake because Christ became poor for us. We are able to be hungry for His sake because Christ because hungry for us! We are able to love our enemies because Christ loved us when we first hated Him. In Luke 6:44-46, we are showed a picture of what it looks like to like for ourselves or Christ. In ourselves, we cant live hungry, poor, and love our enemies for His sake because our hearts produce what is in them. The reason we can now rejoice and jump for joy (Vs. 23) is because Christ is our great reward in Heaven. We are able to experience a piece of that Heaven now as we fellowship with other believers and as we reflect Christ to each other.

— Application.

How can I show my devotion to Christ because of what He did for me on the cross? is He not worthy of my physical needs for His sake? During this quarantine and virus pandemic, it has been easy to lose tract of time and just lounge around or even do things to please myself. (Such as watch tv, fish, etc.) Although there is nothing wrong with these things by themselves, am I willing to give more of that time to The Lord in study to learn more of Who He is. Maybe I have spent more money on myself than on His cause to reach the World for him. I need to become poor for His sake now, so that I will be rich in Christ. I want to reflect Him more!