Part Four of What God Asks!

I began, part one of three, with, the issues presented in Luke 13:10-17, where Jesus was teaching in the synagogue. It was the sabbath.  When he noticed a crippled woman and he healed her.  The religious leaders were indignant!  They basically  scolded him for healing on the sabbath.

The reference is about the need of resting on the sabbath. A historic command from God.  It is a holy law to the Jewish people.  And the Jewish people have religiously upheld that tradition for centuries.  It had, like many old traditions, caused great debate and misunderstanding about what people of faith are to do, to think and not to do.

Jesus calls the synagogue leaders “hypocrites.” 

"You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? 16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?"  

That is where I wondered off on Isaiah’s announcement in chapter 58.

I am adding a fourth part to the three! 

Today I will take up where I left off; because Jesus makes all of those instruction from Isaiah a bit more clear.  This will be just my take on the situation. 

It goes something like this, it is when you do all that work, thinking you can earn salvation.  That is, when you do it simply to impress God in order to get to heaven.  It won’t work!

It is like the old saying!  “It is not whether you win or lose that counts.  It is how!  Actually why!  you play the game.”

Jesus is very careful to explain this in John’s Gospel!  

First, Jesus came to adjust the traditional work ethic.  The idea that the Religious Leaders so passionately preached.  He did that adjusting in many ways, concerning various Jewish rituals and traditions, during his short ministry.  

He did this by reminding them of their source of power for living God’s way. Reminding them that it is their hearts that God wanted to do his work here on earth. 

It goes like this:  

He ask of them to surrender their wills to his.  

Then he provides the source of energy, and attitude, to do it.  To do his will in a world that asked them to compromise.  

The source of power, God gave, was God’s own Spirit.  Who graciously provides both the ability and the heart to do the “work” of worshiping — serving — God.  

They were to do, this serving, by surrendering their need to be God.  That is surrendering their need, for the power and position, of being all wise and all knowing.

From the very beginning, of Creation, God has tried to make this entire issue of “work” verses “grace” easy.  It began in the garden with the command not to eat the fruit on the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  

It would surely been a whole-bunch easies if they had listened!

That was the first clue.

Then later, when he set down the Ten Commandment we get the second clue from Exodus. 20:

“I am the Lord you God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.  You shall have no other god’s before me.”  

Then he goes on:  “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I am the Lord you God.  A jealous God!”

God seems to want just one thing of them!  That is to acknowledge God as God!  And God alone!  Giving God all the credit for who they are, and what they did, and how they did it, and why.  Putting God first, and between, all the did, thought and felt.

And, by the way, God wants the same from us!

I have found that the simplest way to do that is through this little prayer: “Thank You!”

Does that sound too simplistic?

Think again!

That thank you is, first of all, an acknowledgement of God’s all knowing wisdom.

Secondly, it is the acknowledgement of my need of God to make me right.

Thirdly, it is the acknowledgment that I have faith that God can, and will work within me, enabling me to do this salvation work; even with  the temptation to compromise confronting me on every curve.  

Salvation work is all about, and only about, a very precious connection— relationship — between God and all of God’s creation. 

God’s creation, of you and me, who are created in God’s image.  Created to know that God is all mighty.  Created to do God’s bidding, by honoring God enough, to care for his creation.  And by letting God be God, our very source of life, by being God’s love to the world around us.

And we do that through the continuous display of gratitude.

10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. 11 And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." 13 When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. 14 But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day." 15 But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? 16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?" 17 When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.(Luke 13)