Category Archives: Devotional

Selective sanctification – Luke 11:33-36

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33 “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”

There are really two lessons here:

1. Don’t hide the light you have.
2. Make your whole self full of light.

Most often, when I’ve heard this passage taught, the focus is on the first lesson.  I also cannot read it without hearing a cheerful melody resonating in my head.  

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!

So let’s focus on the second one:  Make your whole self full of light.

In other words, we need to beware of what we might call Selective Sanctification.

Let’s read Luke 11:35-36 again.

35 Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.

Sometimes we can want to be holy, but only in the ways that we like best.  Then at the same time, we leave a little room for a few other things – maybe things that are not really holy at all.  We can have our favorite (little?) sins.  We can have the ones we don’t yet realize we have and maybe don’t really want to even know about.

Leviticus 11:44-45 says,

44 For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy … 45 For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.”

A few chapters later, in Leviticus 20:26, we read,

You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.

Then in the New Testament, Peter reminds us, in 1 Peter 1:14-16,

14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

We need to be holy all the way through.  And if you think you are there yet, think again. Beware of selective sanctification; just be holy.

And who is my neighbor? – Luke 10:25-37

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The story begins with a lawyer asking about eternal life.  When Jesus asks him what is written in the law, he responds with the answer Jesus himself has given in Matthew 22 and Mark 12.  My personal opinion is that this was a little bit of a setup.  The lawyer wanted to give Jesus an answer he knew he would like, so that he could ask his next question.  So in 10:29 he, “desiring to justify himself,” now asks, “And who is my neighbor?”  A narrow definition of neighbor can make “Love your neighbor” an easy command to obey, but Jesus was not about to limit his definition.  

He now tells the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  A man is attacked by robbers.  A priest and a Levite both pass by “on the other side.”  A Samaritan comes along and helps.  To digest the parable’s full meaning we have to remind ourselves that Samaritans and Jews typically hated each other.  They were both ethnic and religious rivals, and the mixed-race Samaritans only appeared in the land after the norther tribes of Israel were dragged off into exile.

If Jesus told the story today in Israel today, he might say “Along came a Palestinian Arab …” When Christ asks his final question (10:36), “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” the lawyer gets it right. “The one who showed him mercy.”  Then Jesus delivers his punchline (10:37), “You go, and do likewise.”

To find a proper application for “Go and do likewise,” it might help to think of someone we dislike or someone we believe dislikes us.  Who really irritates you?  Who do you feel most uncomfortable around?  Who do you suspect feels uncomfortable around you?  Who is to you an ethnic and/or religious rival?  What about the atheist next door?  Now go and do likewise.  According to Jesus, the “neighbor” we need to love most may come to us dressed as our enemy in need.

Beyond our ability – Luke 9:10-17

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10 On their return the apostles told him all that they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida. 11 When the crowds learned it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who had need of healing. 12 Now the day began to wear away, and the twelve came and said to him, “Send the crowd away to go into the surrounding villages and countryside to find lodging and get provisions, for we are here in a desolate place.” 13 But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.” 14 For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15 And they did so, and had them all sit down. 16 And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing over them. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. 17 And they all ate and were satisfied. And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.

The Gospels are wonderfully informative when it comes to understanding what it is really like to follow Jesus.  Here they were before a vast crowd of thousands and it was getting late.  The disciples were concerned.  “Hey boss, maybe it’s time we send them away.  We don’t want it to get dark before they can make it to a nearby village. What do you think?”  After a day full of Jesus teaching and healing, they understandably thought their day was done.  The big event was only just beginning.

“You give them something to eat,” is Christ’s response.  “Uh, we don’t really have that much food here, unless we go off and buy it.  But then again, we don’t have that much money either.”

Following Jesus means that he is going to give us work to do that is beyond our ability.  He does this mainly so that we can learn to trust in him, and then see him remarkably provide.  

Jesus had the disciples gather the people into groups of around fifty.  He then began to multiply the food.  I find it interesting that he worked with what they had.  There is a lesson in there someplace.  He fed the people with bread and fish, not with, say, vegetables and sacrificial lambs.  Somehow he used what the disciples could find and remarkably, miraculously provided for the multitude.  No doubt he does that kind of thing still, through people like us in our present circumstances.

We are perishing! – Luke 8:22-25

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22 One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, 23 and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. 24 And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. 25 He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”

That must have been some storm, to strike that kind of fear into a group of disciples, several of whom previously made their living by fishing on that same lake.  After years of experience you might think they had seen it all.  Maybe they hadn’t.

We can find ourselves in situations where experience is little help.  In fact, maybe experience only tells us that all is surely lost.  The disciples found themselves exactly there on this day.  We may feel like that is where we are today. 

And it may seem like Jesus is asleep.  Where is God when you need him?  Where is that Savior when our resources and abilities come to an end?

Jesus responded to their cries.  He calmed the storm.  His words, however, were not exactly reassuring.  He didn’t say, “There, there, it’ll all be all right.”  It was more along the lines of a rebuke, asking, “Where is your faith?”

Their voyage started with Jesus saying, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” He said it – and Jesus knows what he is talking about. 

It is okay and even required that we pray.  Sometimes God just doesn’t act without our prayers.  But we need not panic.  We can pray with faith.  We can pray confidently that God will meet our need.  We can wake Jesus up, but perhaps not with the same level or kind of fear the disciples showed on that night in the boat during the storm.