{"id":383,"date":"2019-12-10T13:58:09","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T13:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reachingtaiwan.com\/?p=383"},"modified":"2019-12-10T16:40:11","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T16:40:11","slug":"luke-11-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reachingtaiwan.com\/?p=383","title":{"rendered":"Luke 1:1-25"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
  1. Background<\/strong><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

         If you are like me when I\nfirst started really studying Gods\u2019 Word, you probably at one-point thought\nLuke was a disciple of Christ; well, he wasn\u2019t. Luke was a physician and you\nwill notice as you study his books (Acts included) that he goes into a lot of\ndetail about Christ\u2019s healing power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

         Luke was a companion of Paul\nduring his ministry before Paul\u2019s persecution. What he wrote was what he had\nheard Paul preach from one side of the Roman Empire to another. He is writing\nto a man by the name of Theophilus. We are unsure who this Theophilus really\nwas, but Luke\u2019s letter wasn\u2019t given to us to find out who he was. It was given\nto us to find out Who Christ is, so that\u2019s what we are going to focus on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

         While we study the book of\nLuke, you should notice that he presents Jesus as the Son of Man a lot. This\nChrist brings salvation by identifying with humanity in all its weakness. He\nheals the sick and seeks out those rejected by society. Greek civilization\nrepresented culture, philosophy, wisdom, reason, beauty, education. Therefore,\nto appeal to the thoughtful, cultured, philosophic Greek mind, Luke, in a\ncomplete, orderly, and classical story, depicts the glorious beauty and\nperfection of Jesus, the ideal, universal man. In addition, Luke includes more\nreferences to various classes of people and identifies women and children more\nthan any of the other Gospel writers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          As we start out in chapter one, we need to remember there has been 400 years of silence from God. The last time someone had a message from God was from the prophets. As we can see in the first few verses, Israel had kept up with sacrifices and all the customs of the temple. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    2. What can we learn about God?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In verse 13, we can see that God is a God that hears and answers prayer! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    We can also see by verse 17 that God is a God that keeps His Word. Back in Malachi 4:6 God makes a promise to send someone that was going to pave a way for a Savior. It\u2019s also important to notice that God answered \u201cYes\u201d to Zacharias prayer because it was already God\u2019s will to send someone to pave the way for Christ. When we go to God in prayer, we should always be seeking His Will and not our own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    We can also see in verse 20 that God is not pleased with disbelief. Because Zacharias didn\u2019t believe, God pretty much said, \u201cfine, I\u2019ll have the last word until your son is born.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    3. How does this point to Christ?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

         Although we haven\u2019t read far\nenough to tell just yet, we can already see how God is keeping a promise he\nmade thousands of years before this point. That promise was a promise of a\nSavior. Out of all the promises God made to His people, the promise of Jesus\nwas the greatest promise of all. The birth of John would be a step of that\npromise coming to fulfilment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    4. Application.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

         I know that while I read this\npassage, the thought of God being displeased with Zacharias\u2019 unbelief bothered\nme. Reading through the Bible, it is easy to see that my God is a God that\nkeeps His promises. His greatest promise to me was Jesus Christ. Before that\nPromise left this earth, He made another promise. That promise was that He\nwould be returning one day and until that day I needed to do all I could to\nreach a lost world for Him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

         How many times, though, have\nmy actions and words screamed that I don\u2019t believe the promise that Christ will\nreturn one day? I know that when my wife, Ashley, and I first began thinking\nabout this question, we looked at our monthly finances. As we added up the\nbills my heart sank as I realized my largest bill was going toward my needs\u2026.\npersonally that bothered me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

         My giving back to God didn\u2019t\nsay \u201cI believed Him\u201d in my eyes. We have sense rearranged our giving so that\nthe largest amount that comes out of our monthly finances goes right back into\ntithe and missions giving. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Another way my life says that I don\u2019t believe His Word is my fear of witnessing. Now there is nothing wrong with being afraid to witness, but its when that fear constrains us from doing it, then that fear is wrong. How many times have I kept my mouth shut when I should have been sharing Christ with someone? Keeping my mouth shut because of fear of persecution and embarrassment is a sign that I don\u2019t truly believe Christ is coming back one day. If I truly believed it\u2026 I wouldn\u2019t be able to help but tell someone before it\u2019s too late!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Background      If you are like me when I first started really studying Gods\u2019 Word, you probably at one-point thought Luke was a disciple of Christ; well, he wasn\u2019t. Luke was a physician and you will notice as you study his books (Acts included) that he goes into a lot of detail about Christ\u2019s healing…
    Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reachingtaiwan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reachingtaiwan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reachingtaiwan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reachingtaiwan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reachingtaiwan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=383"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/reachingtaiwan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":385,"href":"https:\/\/reachingtaiwan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions\/385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reachingtaiwan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reachingtaiwan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reachingtaiwan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reachingtaiwan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}