Welcome to the Well Soul Podcast, where we pause to drink and scripture, reflect and pray. I am your host, Seana Scott, and sometimes life leaves our soul's feeling parched, so come to the well of living water that never runs dry.
Welcome to Luke chapter six in our Certainty at Faith Series in the Gospel of Luke. Today we'll be meditating on what Jesus teaches in a sermon called the Beatitudes. There is a lot in today's passage, so I will summarize most of it so we can slowly drink in one larger passage.
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Jesus and his followers walked through the grain field and ate heads of grain on the Sabbath. Some Pharisees criticize them for breaking the Sabbath rules to not work on the Sabbath. These religious leaders followed manmade cultural, religious rules to try to live out faithfulness to the law of God.
Unfortunately, their commitment to all their rules to try to follow God, blinded them to God in the flesh who stood before them, in this swaying grain fields.
Jesus points them to the Old Testament Scripture about God's exceptions for God's purposes, like when David ate the consecrated bread. And then Jesus declared to them, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.
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Luke then records another Sabbath breaking incident. Jesus spoke in the synagogue and a man with a withered hand wanted healing. The scribes and Pharisees were looking to see if Jesus would heal on the Sabbath—and he did.
The scripture-memorizing religious teachers were aghast when he healed a man with a withered hand. But they should know the story of King Jeroboam recorded in 1st Kings. How King Jeroboam spoke against a man of God. And the man of God withered King Jeroboam’s hand. And then after the king begged the man of God for healing ,the man of God restored King Jeroboam’s hand.
The Son of Man is Lord the Sabbath, but these teachers only saw a rule breaker.
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Take a moment to ponder.
Are we anything like these religious teachers?
Do we miss what God is doing right in front of us?
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Next, we read about Jesus spending time in prayer and calling his 12 disciples, and the crowds flock from all over the vicinity to listen to Jesus and to be healed.
We can imagine that some came just to see the show, but others truly wanted to know: Is he the promised one? Is he the Messiah?
This is where we read Luke's version of the beatitudes.
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Before I read the passage, let's take a moment to breathe and clear us from all other distractions.
Come Holy Spirit, come wash us with your Word.
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Listen to the spirit's prodding in your own heart.
Luke 6:20-26
20 Looking at his disciples, he said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22 Blessed are you when people hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil,
because of the Son of Man.
23 “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
24 “But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
25 Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26 Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.
What stood out to you from these verses?
Next, we read more about those who call us evil or hate us in verses 27 to 36.
27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
In light of this scripture, how is the Holy Spirit ministering to you of how you should treat those who are difficult?
From all that we have heard, what is the Holy Spirit instructing your heart to do or not do?
Or what is heavy on your heart that you would like to pray about?
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Talk to God in a time of silence and prayer.
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Let's pray together.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, thank you for your word. Help us God, to love those difficult people in our lives. Help us, God, to live for what truly. To follow you faithfully, to be willing to learn about you and willing to change to follow you better. God, we love you. We need you. Help us to live for you today.
Amen.
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Thank you for joining me on the Well Soul Podcast today. Please review and share the podcast so more people can be encouraged in their walks with Jesus. I also invite you to subscribe to the Well Soul Monthly. It's a digital newsletter that will encourage and inspire you to live a life toward cultivating a well soul. It's like a bucket of refreshment in your inbox. Click the link in the show notes to subscribe.
There is so much more to the story in this chapter six, so if you would like to drink in the scriptures more slowly than the podcast allows, I encourage you to look at the resources linked in the show notes.
I would like to give a special thanks to Dr. Sandra Glahn for her Latte with Luke Bible Study and Brian Vasquez productions, who has made this podcast possible.
This episode is sponsored by social remix.co. That a social remix.co, a social media generating website that saves you hours of content creation with just the click of a button. For more information, see the links in the show notes.
God bless you and I pray that you have a well soul.