Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 23-24.

The first thing I want to write about is the criminal on the cross who went to paradise.  He did not ask for anything except to be remembered by Jesus when Jesus came into His kingdom.  He knew he deserved to die, and he knew he deserved Hell for his sins.  He also knew that Jesus did not deserve death.  More than that, he believed that Jesus was the Messiah, but all this criminal wanted was for Jesus to remember that he at least believed in Him in His deepest despair.  That is a faith I have trouble fathoming.  It is the type of faith which I wrote of a few days ago when I wrote about Jesus telling us to say that we are unworthy servants who have but done our duty.  This man was an unworthy servant who had not done his duty.  Yet, because he acknowledged that, Jesus invited him to paradise.  That man will spend eternity praising God because he knows he did not deserve what he got.  Let us praise God similarly without expecting reward.

When Jesus appeared to the disciples after His resurrection, He asked for something to eat and ate what they gave Him in their presence.  This was to show them that He was not a ghost, or a spirit, or even an animated corpse.  Just as He had told Jairus and his wife to give their daughter something to eat in order to demonstrate that she was truly alive, here He asked for something to eat so that He could demonstrate that He was truly alive.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 21-22.

Usually I have an idea about what I am going to write on when I start writing my blog, but not today.  So, I will start at the beginning of the passage, which is the account of the widow’s mites.  Jesus told us that He values the gifts of those who have little, but give more of what they have than He does the gifts of those who give a lot out of even more.  To put that another way, sometimes when we have little to offer we feel like it is not worth our bother, our gift won’t make a difference.  There are two answers to this.  First, the answer which Jesus gives here, even if all we have will barely make a dent in the need, God values our willingness to give it.  Second, the willingness of those who can barely make ends meet, if that, to give inspires those who receive their aid to make the most of it.  So, don’t ever be reluctant to give because you think the amount which you can give doesn’t matter, won’t make a difference.

Jesus follows that up by predicting the destruction of the temple and the coming of the kingdom of God.  Matthew’s account of this prediction includes a prophecy of the end times with Jesus’ prophecy of the destruction of the temple.  Luke, on the other hand, appears to only include the prophecy of the destruction of the temple.  However, elements of what Jesus says here apply to other times in history as well, including a reference to His return.  Throughout most of history, those who follow Jesus have experienced betrayal by those closest to them, as Jesus predicts here.  One of the things which Jesus says here is something I think all of us should take to heart.  He says, “make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.”  We should not worry about how we will defend our beliefs when people attack them, or attack us for them.  We should just focus on being good witnesses for Christ and God will provide us with the words that defend against the attack.  That does not mean that we don’t need to study the Scripture, or fully understand what we believe.  We should not worry about knowing the right thing to say in any situation.  We can trust God to provide us with the answer.  However, I will repeat, this does not mean that we can leave off on studying God’s word.  In fact, Peter tells us, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus