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Before we read the text I want to take a moment to consider the setting. Jesus is in the early part of His ministry… He has been introduced, if you will, by John the Baptist… He has been baptized… He has defeated every one of Satan’s wily attempts to bring His ministry to a close before it ever got off the ground… He has performed some miracles… He has begun to teach and the response to His teaching has been intense … so intense that some in His home town of Nazareth tried to kill Him by throwing Him over a cliff. Others, however, welcomed Him… His teaching and His miracles were that balm in Gilead that cures the sin-sick soul. Jesus has gained a huge following as evidenced by the multitudes gathered to hear him as we open up chapter 5 of Luke.
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I want to pick up where we left off last week. I believe there is a lot of confusion in the universal church today concerning how we are to engage in spiritual warfare so as to defeat the enemy. You have probably already heard from some that we are to claim the blood of Jesus and bind the enemy… we are to take authority over Satan by engaging in a power encounter and command the demons of anger, lust, rage, depression, etc. to leave us alone. Neil Anderson, author of The Bondage Breaker, is perhaps the best known advocate of this type of ministry. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week we saw that it was Jesus’ custom to be in the synagogue on the Sabbath. Now I am sure that Jesus found a lot of things to be less-than-perfect in the worship of God in the synagogue, but notice, He didn’t use that as an excuse to “forsake the assembling of ourselves together.” If anyone didn’t need to “go to church” it was Jesus… yet it was His custom to do so. What a rebuke to everyone who is slack in their faithfulness to the local church. If Jesus found it important to establish that custom, what does that say about those who attend when “it is convenient?”
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Remember the big picture. Jesus has laid aside the tools of His trade as a carpenter. God had raised up John the Baptist to be the forerunner of Jesus’ ministry and to baptize Jesus, after which the Holy Spirit descended from Heaven like a dove upon Jesus to publicly announce God’s approval of His Son:
Luke 3:22: “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.”
Jesus is about 30 years of age at this time when He officially began His public ministry Read the rest of this entry »
