Verse to Memorize: John 4:42 (this is so sweet)
"Nobody can force a single soul... to turn to Christ. All that we can do is to lift up Christ before the world, bring Him into dingy corners and dark places of the earth where He is unknown, introduce Him to strangers, talk about Him to everyone, and live so closely with and in Him that others may see that there really is such a person as Jesus." -Elizabeth "Betty" Stam
Jesus faced a lot of great challenges while walking this earth. One of His biggest challenges was changing how His disciples and His community saw the Messiah. Everyone was looking for a Messiah, but their view of "Messiah" was very limited.
Look at these Old Testament prophecies regarding the coming Messiah...
Isaiah 9:1-3
Isaiah 49:6
Folks were pumped about the idea and reality of a savior, but were expecting a savior for Israel, not the world (nations).
Get your Bible out (hopefully, its out already) and turn to Luke 4.
Read verses 14 and 15...
What are the people's attitude toward Jesus and His ministry?
Read verses 16 through 19...
What does Jesus do after reading the passage in Isaiah?
Read verses 20 through 22...
What was the people's response to what Jesus read?
Is this looked at negatively or positively by the people? (look carefully at this)
Read 23-27...
Why do you think Jesus made this statement? Why these two stories?
Jesus had His audience right where He wanted them and then He goes and ruins it. :)
Now read verses 28-29
What was their response to Jesus' two stories?
I hope that you noticed Jesus' main point with His stories of Elijah and Elisha. These two mighty men of God could have gone and were expected to go to Israel to bring healing, but they went outside of the nation. This did not sit well with His peeps.
One of my favorite things that Jeff Lewis says is, "Jesus is not YOUR personal Savior. He is not a personal pizza or a personal trainer. He is the WORLD's Savior." He goes on to say that we should know Him personally, but He does not solely belong to us. I love that!
Final verse: John 3:16
"It may be he has only sent me here to be a stopgap. Part of a soldier's duty is to fill gaps, you know. One must as willingly be nothing, as something." -Amy Carmichael
(like the rest of "The Big Story of God", most of this week's study is taken from Jeff Lewis' "God's Heart for the Nations")
No comments:
Post a Comment