Why Look Back?
I have a personal testimony that is quite long and would take an entire conversation to cover every part of it. Also, my testimony is not over yet. God is still directing my steps. It is up to me to follow them. And when I don't follow those steps that He lays before and my selfishness redirects me to another path, God jumps right back in and lays another path before me. Once again, it is up to me to be obedient to His word and do what it is that Has commanded me to do (John 14:15).
I bring up this topic because in a conversation I had with a friend the other day about regrets in life. We were talking about what life would be if "this" happened instead of "that." While I do struggle with how nice things would have been if I worked at this company or finished school sooner or gone to school elsewhere or had been married to an ex-girlfriend, I also realize that I am in life where God needs me to be to do the work He has commanded me to do. While I do not know where life would have taken me had past things worked out a certain way, it also doesn't matter to even think about it. I am a different person today than I was 15 years ago, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, and 2 years ago. I can appreciate where I am even if I do not like all the parts (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
In Genesis 19, God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for not having righteous people in it. God spared Abraham's family and God's angels told Abraham's family not to look back at the city as it was being destroyed or they would turn into pillars of salt. Lot's wife looked back at Sodom and Gomorrah and did the opposite of what she was instructed and turned into a pillar of salt.
It is one thing to look back at life and appreciate where you have been and stay faithful in the path God has laid before you, but is another to see your past life (before following Christ) and wish it was that instead of where God has you now (2 Corinthians 5:17).
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Humility and Salvation Parables
Jesus told many parables. He used these parables to drive home points that people needed to understand about humility and salvation and serving the poor. He brought up these points to also show us to be used by God for God's purposes.
The scene is set knowing that Jesus is set to eat at the house of the ruler of the Pharisees on a Sabbath. He healed a man with dropsy (fluid accumulation in body tissues) and knowing he was being watch asks the lawyers and Pharisees if it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath. We know Jesus was far more focused on fulfilling God's purposes and being in God's will than trying to meet man's expectations and interpretations of God. Jesus asked them if their son or ox they owned fell into a well on the Sabbath, would they let them drown or try to save them? No one had an answer. Jesus is exposing their hypocrisy of how they would rationalize their own law breaking but hide it while condemning others who break laws.
Jesus then uses the parable of the Wedding Feast (Luke 14:7-11) to explain how many are concerned with giving only if they are to get back. In a Wedding Feast, people are likely to sit at places of honor and feel ashamed when asked to move to lower places. Jesus said that people should sit in the lowest place so that the host has the chance to move you to a higher place of honor. That way you will not be humbled in front of others, but be exalted by someone else rather than yourself. He is saying there is nothing wrong with being honored, but if you are honoring yourself then that can lead to being humbled and embarrassed.
The Great Banquet parable found in Luke 14:12-24. It has a couple of different pieces to it. In verses 7-14, Jesus explains that when we have feasts, we should not invite those that can and may feel obligated to repay us. We should invite those that cannot repay us like the poor, crippled, lame and blind. Jesus says we will be repaid at the resurrection of the just ("we will never be the loser
when we give after the pattern of Gods generosity."- Dave Guzik).
There is a second part that breaks down Jesus's role in salvation. He compares God to a man who hosts a great feast and sends a servant (Jesus) to get people (all people on earth) to attend. People give excuses as to why they cannot attend the feast such as tending to a field, examining their property and being just being married. His point is that people will give any possible reason as to why they will not follow him (the servant) back to the man's (God's) feast (salvation or Heaven). God sent Jesus to get us to sit with Him in Heaven. It is up to us to follow Jesus to that feast.
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The Narrow Door
Jesus was asked a question regarding how many people will be saved. Jesus answers this person, not with an exact number, but how someone should approach being saved. Jesus saw that many would think that they had picked the right way, but the "narrow door" was not the option that was chosen (See Luke 13:22-30).
The Narrow Door does not provide a lot of options to walk through. It takes hard work to enter through it. This is not in regard to physical size of the one trying to walk through the door, but in regard to the hard work that it takes to get through that door. It does not leave space for other religions, gods and deities. The narrow door does not leave space for our old life and our past ways (see Isaiah 43:18-19).
The answer Jesus gave also focuses on the salvation of yourself. He does not give an actual number as to how many people will be saved, but he draws the attention from others to just the individual. We are not to be concerned with everyone else's salvation and figuring out if they are saved or not. That doesn't mean you can't share the gospel still and talk about how God has worked in your life, but we are not the judge to determine who is going to heaven and who is not.
Jesus wants us to work hard to enter through that narrow door. He doesn't want us to get prideful and think that we have it down pat. We don't. We are imperfect people who need Christ moment by moment. In a real world example, how important is the gym, eating healthy, being well read or well traveled to you? In comparison, how important is your walk with Christ and seeking to understand his teachings? Make sense?
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What Is Said in the Dark...
Have you ever heard of the saying "what's done in the dark will come to light?" What does that mean? I have always understood it to mean that what you do in secret will eventually get out and will no longer be a secret.
It is actually a quote from Jesus regarding hypocrisy. Men who hide truth from other men may be successful in that context, but what about hiding something from God. Can you actually hide something from God? What would you even want to hide from God? Shame for our sins makes us try to hide from God. Remember Adam and Eve when they hid from God after eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil? They hid because they were ashamed.
Jesus is saying that whatever we do to try to hide from man will still be seen by God. God can see all. So, even if you commit a crime and try to cover it up, God knows. God knows everything. What we do in darkness (distance from God) shall be heard by God's all knowing ears. God wants us to not hide from Him but connect to Him and His will as we see in Romans 8:29. God wants us to be like His son, Jesus. The more we are like hima nd seek to be like Him by remaining in God's will, the less we will feel the desire to hide from our shame.
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Ask, Seek, Knock
Jesus has just finished praying and then the disciples asked him to show them how to pray. decisions. He teaches them a prayer that we refer to today as the Lord's prayer. But the Jesus goes further on how to pray.
He gives an example of going to a friend late at night in need of some bread for an overnight guest. The one in need could ask just one time and once denied could turn around and walk away empty handed. But when the one in need continues to ask for what he needs (bread in this context) then other friend is more likely to give in to the friend due to the persistence.
Jesus says that is how we should pray. We should pray consistently and persistently. Jesus tells us in Luke 11:9 to Ask....Seek....Knock." When we ask from God it will be given. When we seek from God we will find what we need. When we knock on God's door, the door will be opened. But remember this is about consistency and persistence. Not just a one time thing.
God wants to give you what you need, but if we do not seek these things from Him then how will we get it. God wants us to seek His spirit and be one in His will. So, that checks our motives. Is what we are asking for united with God's will or is it just for us?How do you find out? You ask, you seek and you knock. And if you don't get the answer, you keep doing it.
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Taking Ownership of Our Actions
We have to stop blaming God for where our life is. We have to stop blaming God for how we feel. And we have to stop blaming God for the things that happen to us after we make bad decisions. Ultimately we have to take ownership of our actions. Our actions can be a determining factor as to whether or not we are seeking to be aligned with God or just seeking to please ourselves.
I have had many conversations regarding God and what He would allow in our lives. Such questions circle around topics like why does God allow suffering or evil. The truth is, we live in a broken world full of broken people. It started with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God said in Genesis 2:15-17 that Adam and Eve could eat from any tree except for that tree for surely they would die. So what did Adam and Eve do? They did exactly what they were not supposed to. They were tempted by the serpent (we understand to be Satan or temptation) who in Genesis 3:1-7 questioned what God said and then debunked what God had already commanded.
Isn't that what Satan does to us now? We know what God says based on what is written in scripture. We understand what God says, but when tempted with whatever tempts us, we can fall when we stray away from obedience. We do not always choose to run away from temptation. When we give in to temptations the results can be immediately catastrophic or eventually. I am not writing these things to scare people into obedience but to illustrate how when we do the opposite of what God commands, we fall right into Satan's trap and we are now further away from God.
Remember King David and Bathsheba and how their affair lead to a child out of wedlock and she was married to someone else? In order for David and Bathsheba to try to hide their shame (just like Adam and Eve wearing loincloths after eating the fruit), David tried to have Bathsheba's husband sleep with his wife (had him come home from war early), but Uriah was too drunk and did not so then David set Uriah up to be killed. Do you see how David and Bathsheba's infidelity and disobeying God went from something small and in a worldly sense very "innocent" lead to her husband's death? Even though David eventually married Bathsheba, God was still not happy with what David had done (2nd Samuel 11:27).
Look at is this way, when you do what God says and you are obedient, it doesn't make life perfect, but His will protects us from Satan's temptations and our own selfishness. In Proverbs 14:12 we see how a way that a man/person sees is the right way to them ends up being the track to death (not necessarily physical death- but even spiritual).
When we are tempted to go against God's will, we can either flee from the temptation which leads to only momentary satisfaction or we can seek God's will for our lives on a moment by moment and daily basis which leads to a closer connection to Him. We are not perfect, but God's will for our lives is.
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