Found #lostandfound #grace #jesus #pharisees #prodigals #prodifgalson #c...

We think about the parables in Luke 15 as being about lostness. But the real emphasis is on being FOUND.

What joy.

Listen:

Read:

Luke 15:1–3, 11b-32

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Pause in the reading, for here is the context. It is the grumbling of the grumblers over the company Jesus was keeping.

So he told them this parable:

Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the wealth that will belong to me.’ So he divided his assets between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant region, and there he squandered his wealth in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that region, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that region, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything.

But when he came to his senses he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” ’

So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.

Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe — the best one — and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

“Now his elder son was in the field, and as he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on.

He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him.

But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command, yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’

Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’ ”

Two Sons

Luke 15:11 — “And he said, A certain man had two sons:”

We know the story of the Prodigal Son.

What we don’t often think about is how the main target of the story is the elder brother who criticized the father for welcoming home the rebellious one and throwing a party to celebrate his return.

The son who took his inheritance, left for a far country, found himself in the dregs, and returned, is easy to relate to from afar. We can understand his repentance. He was clearly wrong.

There is an ancient Orthodox hymn and prayer inspired by him:

“I have recklessly forgotten Your glory, O Father;

And among sinners I have scattered the riches which You gave to me.

And now I cry to You as the Prodigal:

I have sinned before You, O merciful Father;

Receive me as a penitent and make me as one of Your hired servants.”

The older brother was also wrong. His attitude was wrong. His heart was wrong.

Belief and repentance, Jesus taught, are about changing our minds. We can see how the younger brother had to change his. But so did the elder brother. He needed to see his wandering sibling differently.

His father says they ought to rejoice because what was lost had been found.

Jesus was telling the story to wake up those among his listeners who were held captive by judgmentalism and exclusivism.

He was proclaiming the need for mercy. Not only do sinners need mercy, but those who are righteous need it as well.

They need to know they need it and they need to know that they need to give it in order to be whole.

The man had two sons and he cherished them both. God, our Father, still does.

But .. Found.

Read the words of all who had lost something in these parable and then, found them:

And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. — Luke 15:6

And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost. -Luke 15:9

Let us eat and be merry. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. -Luke 15:23b-24

“We have heard the joyful sound: Jesus saves! Jesus Saves! Spread the tidings all around. Jesus saves! Jesus saves!”

So that grand hymn of faith calls us to “give the winds a mighty voice.”

How sweet the sound? Oh yes. The lost has been found. It is the sound of laughter and merriment. It is the sound of praise. It is the sound that rings through the streets of Heaven and even the angels sing. It is the sound that warms the heart of God. It is the sound that ought to flow from our voices daily and throughout the day, the song of gratitude, of joy, and of love.

Whereas I was lost, I am now found. I am no longer lost, no longer hopeless, no longer guilty, alienated, or dispossessed. I am no longer unworthy, no longer useless, no longer an orphan. God no longer sees me as a sinner, but as a son. I have a hope. I have a future. As He did with Jeremiah of old, He knows the plans He has for me.

I am found.

Do you know the joy of being found? Or have you forgotten.

The truth can be seen in your attitudes toward your brothers and sisters in Christ, whether you are patient and forgiving or irritable and judgmental? The truth is revealed in your attitudes toward the lost.

Are you charitable and seeking or critical and aloof? The truth is seen in your attitudes toward new believers. Do you rejoice or rebuff? Do you step aside and move over or do you guard your established territory? Do you join the celebration, feasting with the friends of the father or do you stand afar off as the son who feels he never left home?

You will never be at home as long as you cling to the notion that you never left. You will never experience the full joy of redemption if you forget that you were lost in slavery to sin when grace found you. You will be unmoved at the singing of Amazing Grace if you forget that the wretch saved was you and the lost one who returned was also you. You have been found! Rejoice!

There were two sons, but there were two brothers, the same guys. Both had the wrong idea about what it meant to be sons of a father who loved them in ways they did not understand.

The elder brother, an heir is actually the object of the parables Jesus is telling — especially this one. He knew his responsibilities, stayed home and worked like one who saw himself as a slave. The younger brother knew his rights, took his inheritance, and partied like a man who thought he was free.

The elder brother’s life went on day to day with order, predictability, and success. The younger brother lived lavishly until the money was all gone and fell into sewer, stuck.

The younger brother left the father’s house; the older brother would not enter because he disapproved of the party that was going on to honor the returning younger brother.

 

The younger brother returned, as a pleading slave.

 

The older brother returned from the work day, strutting with pride.

 

Both had a surprise waiting. The younger brother was greeted with a welcome he could not have imagined. The elder brother was revolted and repulsed by the extravagant and inappropriate celebration in his father’s house. He refused to enter.

 

In both cases, the father went out of the house to meet his sons.

 

The elder brother said, “YOUR son;” the father replied, “YOUR brother.”

 

The elder brother said, “I have been your servant;” the father said, “You have always been my son.”

 

The elder brother wanted a party with his friends; the younger brother was enveloped into a party with his father and his father’s friends.

 

In the case of both brothers, the father embraced them as sons.

 

It is about relationships, one where the father takes most of the initiative and pays all the costs.

 

We must celebrate; we must party; we must rejoice. Your brother was dead. Your brother is now alive.

 

We are invited to a celebration, both as guests of honor and as fellow celebrants of those who have returned.

 

The way we can most please our father, is by coming.

Do not stand aloof and critical on the outside of the great grace party.

Come. Jin in the singing, the feasting and the dance, the laughter and the joy. Especially join in the dance of love.

We join the joy when we realize that we also have been found.

F — That means that we are suddenly, surprisingly, wonderfully FREE

• O-That means that our sins have been OBVIATED. Even the mention of them is no longer necessary.

• U- That means that we are UNITED and reunited with God and with God’s family.

• N- That means that we are NECESSARY. Consider that. God considers us necessary enough to search high and low for us.

• D — That means that we are DESTINED for something wonderful. Our place in the family has been restored and we have the same destiny we would have had if we had never left.

I am weak, Lord.

I am lowly.

I bring nothing in my hands. I offer no credentials, no reputation, no resume worth reading.

My track record is checkered. My focus is scattered. My mind is here and there and everywhere. I am easily distracted and frequently tested to the core.

Yet, God, you are my God.

Yet, God, you love me, value me, invest in me, and show grace and mercy to me daily.

I am unworthy. You are worthy.

All my value is that you regard me.

Why, oh why?

It does not matter why because You are the Why of all things and of my existence and You have engraved Your love into the fabric of the universe.

Your love, Oh LORD, is the only true reality, standard, and truth that bleeds through all of our opinions about ourselves and others.

Your wrath is against all that is not love. Why then, if I am not judged, can I ever stand in judgment against my neighbor?

I shall not.

He and she are Yours. You see in them that which is precious even as You see something precious in me.

Give me glimpses today of the wonder in my neighbors eyes and the love in his or her heart that I may view my neighbor through the lenses of Your redemptive and reconciling grace and lay all of my prejudices and agendas aside.

And may my neighbor join me in this cause and his neighbor and her neighbor.

I pray this, as the only solution to our divisions in the Name of Jesus who divided us in order to unite us, who showed us hard truth in order to reconcile us to Himself and to one another, who bore all pain, sin, and alienation upon Himself in order to introduce us to You as Your long lost children who have come home.

Give us the heart of the prodigal’s father.

Give us Your heart and the heart of Jesus, Your Son. Amen.

I close with the words of a hymn, set to an old Shaker tune. Sydney Carter wrote these words and first shared them in 1963:

I danced in the morn¬ing when the world was be¬gun,

And I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun,

And I came down from heav¬en and I danced on the earth,

At Beth¬le¬hem I had my birth.

Refrain

Dance, then, wher¬ev¬er you may be;

I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.

And I’ll lead you all wher¬ev¬er you may be,

And I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he.

I danced for the scribe and the Pha¬ri¬see,

But they would not dance and they would not fol¬low me;

I danced for the fish¬er¬men, for James and John;

They came to me and the dance went on.

Refrain

I danced on the Sab¬bath when I cured the lame,

The ho¬ly peo¬ple said it was a shame;

They whipped and they stripped and they hung me high;

And they left me there on a cross to die.

Refrain

I danced on a Fri¬day and the sky turned black;

It’s hard to dance with the dev¬il on your back;

They bur¬ied my bo¬dy and they thought I’d gone,

But I am the dance and I still go on.

Refrain

They cut me down and I leapt up high,

I am the life that’ll nev¬er, nev¬er die;

I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me;

I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.

Come to the party.

Let’s dance.

Turn Around You Are Going the Wrong Way Luke 13 1 9 #repent #repenta...

Turn Around; You Are Going the Wrong Way

Jesus could tell by the questions and the attitude behind them that the crowd was going the wrongs way, thinking the wrong way, and heading on a path toward destruction.

Are you familiar with Newton’s third law?  It simply states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Paul called it reaping what you so.

Jesus called it the fruit of the tree or vine.

In my part of the world, if you are the 99-freeway pointing north from Fresno, if you keep going, you will get to Sacramento eventually, If I want to go to Los Angeles, I have to turn around.

The gospel writers called the message of repentance, "good news," not so much because we must, but also because WE CAN. What then is the core of the message when the contrast is so profound between repentance and death?

Luke 13:1-9

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

 At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the other people living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish just as they did.”

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the man working the vineyard, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”

Jesus is confronted with the deaths of some people that His countrymen assumed were evil. They wanted to know if it was God’s judgment. He read the intent of their questions and replied that they were no worse sinners than the other Galileans but cautioned the folks that unless they changed their living and thinking (repentance), they would die like the others.

Notice how he is always personalizing things, taking the onus off of the “other guy” and bringing it back to our choices.

Then He ups the ante and refers to some very fine people who had died. The question is rhetorical. Of course these did not have tragedy come into their lives because they were worse sinners than anyone else. That is not the meaning of tragedy – then or now.

Trouble comes to everyone, sometimes it just seems random.

Again, He points back to them with a life lesson – Indeed, however, lack of change (movement, repentance, elasticity in our lives) will lead to death. Here, He refers to death in the spiritual dimension whether He is referring to a last judgment or just to death for all intents and purposes in this life. In either and both cases, the loss is great to ourselves and to others who would benefit from our living. Above all, as He will indicate, the loss is greatest to God Himself.

REPENTANCE:

• R– Resiliency in the face of tragedy.
• E– Effort extended when ease is expected.
• P– Progress when it is easier to sit, wait, and let the world pass you by.
• E- Exiting the arena of negative habits and entering the realm of new possibilities.
• N– Nagging the part of ourselves that drifts into routine ruts of negative thinking.
• T– Tickling and teasing our thinking so that we are always moving to the edge.
• A– Accepting diversity and ambiguity as part of life.
• N– Noticing the changes around us as the signs that call for adjustments of our courses and the urges through which God may be speaking.
• C– Calling on God in confession and contrition for constant conversion to His image and purposes.
• E– Ever energizing ourselves in the power of the Holy Spirit to be stirred, moved, disturbed and empowered to LIVE (opposite of DIE!) as people who make a difference …

How do I repent, turn around, change my mind and direction, and point myself toward life?

Hear and heed the words of Jesus and, by faith, trust, and intention, start following him. Take his grace and his invitation for a new start and a new heart.

 OR .. we can …

 DIE – We can die through …

• D– Decline. We just die a little at a time, drifting away from the source of life and vitality into a dark abyss of disconnected despair.
• I– Inactivity, irrelevance, inertia, or inward focus. These sap our lives in an endless loop of selfish hum-drum-ness.
• E– Extinction of all that makes us alive to God, ourselves, and others.
  
  

BUT – Then He tells us a parable of a farmer and a fig tree. The fig tree story reminds us that God takes no joy in our death and has not given up on us. He is extremely reluctant to do so and stalls to give us ample opportunity to find the place of repentance (life and mind change).

Repentance implies movement. We are going somewhere. We are moving toward an outcome.

We can change or die, but to change is far better. Resources are available. The grace is free. The power is abundant. The choice is ours … daily.

 We Need More and More and More

Isaiah 55:1-9

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

 Hear, everyone who thirsts;

    come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread
    and your earnings for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
    and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
    listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
    my steadfast, sure love for David.
See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
    a leader and commander for the peoples.
Now you shall call nations that you do not know,
    and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
    for he has glorified you.

Seek the Lord while he may be found;
    call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake their way
    and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
    and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

 After a miraculous meal, recorded in John 6, the crowds worked very hard to find Jesus.

He gently questioned their motives in order to get them to do the same about themselves. He pointed them back to this thought from Isiah. He told them to direct their efforts toward food that does not perish.

Your harried, frantic efforts to feed yourselves are futilely flawed, he seems to suggest. Everything in which you invest your time, energy, and resources is already in the process of spoiling.

There is, however, food that produces eternal satisfaction.

Place your focus there.

Thus, Jesus introduces a lengthy discussion of the bread of life. He started by stimulating their hunger and thirst to hear more.

What does it take for God to make us aware of our profound hunger for more?

_______

From Barclay’s Daily Study Bible

SUFFERING AND SIN ( Luke 13:1-5 ) 

13:1-5 At this time some men came and told Jesus about the Galilaeans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. "Do you think," he answered, "that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans because this happened to them? I ten you, No! But unless you repent you will all perish in like manner. Or, as for the eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell--do you think they were debtors to God beyond all those who dwell in Jerusalem? I tell you, No! But unless you repent you will perish in the same way ."

We have here references to two disasters about which we have no definite information and can only speculate.

First, there is the reference to the Galilaeans whom Pilate murdered in the middle of their sacrifices. As we have seen, Galilaeans were always liable to get involved in political trouble because they were a highly inflammable people. Just about this time Pilate had been involved in serious trouble. He had decided rightly that Jerusalem needed a new and improved water supply. He proposed to build it and, to finance it with certain Temple monies. It was a laudable object and a more than justifiable expenditure. But at the very idea of spending Temple monies like that, the Jews were up in arms. When the mobs gathered, Pilate instructed his soldiers to mingle with them, wearing cloaks over their battle dress for disguise. They were instructed to carry cudgels rather than swords. At a given signal they were to fall on the mob and disperse them. This was done, but the soldiers dealt with the mob with a violence far beyond their instructions and a considerable number of people lost their lives. Almost certainly Galilaeans would be involved in that. We know that Pilate and Herod were at enmity, and only became reconciled after Pilate had sent Jesus to Herod for trial ( Luke 23:6-12). It may well be that it was this very incident which provoked that enmity.

As for the eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell, they are still more obscure. The King James Version uses the word sinners of them also; but, as the margin shows, it should be not sinners but debtors. Maybe we have a clue here. It has been suggested that they had actually taken work on Pilate's hated aqueducts. If so, any money they earned was due to God and should have been voluntarily handed over, because it had already been stolen from him; and it may well be that popular talk had declared that the tower had fallen on them because of the work they had consented to do.

But there is far more than an historical problem in this passage. The Jews rigidly connected sin and suffering. Eliphaz had long ago said to Job, "Who that was innocent ever perished?" ( Job 4:7). This was a cruel and a heartbreaking doctrine, as Job knew well. And Jesus utterly denied it in the case of the individual. As we all know very well, it is often the greatest saints who have to suffer most.

But Jesus went on to say that if his hearers did not repent they too would perish. What did he mean? One thing is clear--he foresaw and foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, which happened in A.D. 70 (compare Luke 21:21-24). He knew well that if the Jews went on with their intrigues, their rebellions, their plottings, their political ambitions, they were simply going to commit national suicide; he knew that in the end Rome would step in and obliterate the nation; and that is precisely what happened. So what Jesus meant was that if the Jewish nation kept on seeking an earthly kingdom and rejecting the kingdom of God they could come to only one end.

To put the matter like that leaves, at first sight, a paradoxical situation. It means that we cannot say that individual suffering and sin are inevitably connected but we can say that national sin and suffering are so connected. The nation which chooses the wrong ways will in the end suffer for it. But the individual is in very different case. He is not an isolated unit. He is bound up in the bundle of life. Often he may object, and object violently, to the course his nation is taking; but when the consequence of that course comes, he cannot escape being involved in it. The individual is often caught up in a situation which he did not make; his suffering is often not his fault; but the nation is a unit and chooses its own policy and reaps the fruit of it. It is always dangerous to attribute human suffering to human sin; but always safe to say that the nation which rebels against God is on the way to disaster.

GOSPEL OF THE OTHER CHANCE AND THREAT OF THE LAST CHANCE ( Luke 13:6-9 )

 

13:6-9 Jesus spoke this parable, "A man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it and did not find it. He said to the keeper of the vineyard, 'Look you--for the last three years I have been coming and looking for fruit on this fig-tree, and I still am not finding any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the ground' 'Lord,' he answered him, 'let it be this year too, until I dig round about it and manure it, and if it bears fruit in the coming year, well and good; but if not, you will cut it down.'"

 

Here is a parable at one and the same time lit by grace and close packed with warnings.

(i) The fig-tree occupied a specially favoured position. It was not unusual to see fig-trees, thorn-trees and apple-trees in vineyards. The soil was so shallow and poor that trees were grown wherever there was soil to grow them; but the fig-tree had a more than average chance; and it had not proved worthy of it. Repeatedly, directly and by implication, Jesus reminded men that they would be judged according to the opportunities they had. C. E. M. Joad once said, "We have the powers of gods and we use them like irresponsible schoolboys." Never was a generation entrusted with so much as ours and, therefore, never was a generation so answerable to God.

(ii) The parable teaches that uselessness invites disaster. It has been claimed that the whole process of evolution in this world is to produce useful things, and that what is useful will go on from strength to strength, while what is useless will be eliminated. The most searching question we can be asked is, "Of what use were you in this world?"

(iii) Further, the parable teaches that nothing which only takes out can survive. The fig-tree was drawing strength and sustenance from the soil; and in return was producing nothing. That was precisely its sin. In the last analysis, there are two kinds of people in this world--those who take out more than they put in, and those who put in more than they take out.

In one sense we are all in debt to life. We came into it at the peril of someone else's life; and we would never have survived without the care of those who loved us. We have inherited a Christian civilization and a freedom which we did not create. There is laid on us the duty of handing things on better than we found them.

"Die when I may," said Abraham Lincoln, "I want it said of me that I plucked a weed and planted a flower wherever I thought a flower would grow." Once a student was being shown bacteria under the microscope. He could actually see one generation of these microscopic living things being born and dying and another being born to take its place. He saw, as he had never seen before, how one generation succeeds another. "After what I have seen," he said, "I pledge myself never to be a weak link."

If we take that pledge we will fulfil the obligation of putting into life at least as much as we take out.

(iv) The parable tells us of the gospel of the second chance. A fig-tree normally takes three years to reach maturity. If it is not fruiting by that time it is not likely to fruit at all. But this fig-tree was given another chance.

It is always Jesus' way to give a man chance after chance. Peter and Mark and Paul would all gladly have witnessed to that. God is infinitely kind to the man who falls and rises again.

(v) But the parable also makes it quite clear that there is a final chance. If we refuse chance after chance, if God's appeal and challenge come again and again in vain, the day finally comes, not when God has shut us out, but when we by deliberate choice have shut ourselves out. God save us from that!

Copyright Statement
These files are public domain.
Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.

Bibliographical Information
Barclay, William. "Commentary on Luke 13". "William Barclay's Daily Study Bible". https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/dsb/luke-13.html. 1956-1959.

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I Must Walk On - Luke 13 31-35

I Must Walk

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”

He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.

Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’

-Luke 13:31–33

When the colluded powers sent their collaborating messengers to warn Jesus he was in trouble and that he was likely to be killed, his response was four-fold:

• I am doing works of mercy and deliverance.
• I will continue to do them until I am done.
• I will not be stopped. I will not be intimidated.
• I won’t die here, but I will keep moving toward the place of my death.

But there is a third day coming and no matter what anyone does or thinks they can do to me, I will move past it toward that day … and then, and only then, my work will be complete.

The way of the cross is the way of persistent progress. We cannot rest from the walk — even when our bodies are not in motion.

Are you tempted to take a break from the way of the cross?

“Go and tell that fox …”

Even in the flesh, Jesus is unperturbed by threats and plots.

He says, “I will keep on doing the good I am doing and I will finish my course.”

That is all that is required … to keep on doing what we have been placed here to do until such a time as our course has finished.

Neither Herod nor any other external puppet power has any power to alter the course of our lives.

Live with that confidence today.

Keep on.

Determination is when you decide when and where you will terminate your journey.

Following Jesus is an act of determination.

No termination until the place and time of determination.

Determine to do so and then, do so.

“And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent.” — Luke 4:43

Is it an urgency, and emergency, or a priority?

Or … is it all three of two out of three?

Or … is it none of these?

What must you be doing right now?

The phrase, “I must” appears 16 times in the King James Version of the Bible. Jesus said, “I must preach” in Luke 4, “I must walk …” in Luke 13:33, and “I must be about my Father’s business” in Luke 2:29.

John the Baptist said, “He must increase, and I must decrease (John 3:30).”

These were driven by something greater than the urgency of the moment. Urgency is a poor substitute for purpose and priority. When we establish an understanding of what is truly important based upon God’s abiding principles and mission, we need to stick with it.

The reality is that the moment we prioritize our ministries, diversions will emerge, distractions will appear, and urgency will shout in our ears, “Stop and take care of me NOW!”

We need to be able to say “no” to urgency any time it steps outside the boundaries of our priorities as given to us by God.

Yes, there will be emergencies that must be faced as they arise. There will be extraneous details that must be handled. The problem arises when every urgent matter presents itself with the same emergency motif and both ministry and the spiritual life become one great series of emergencies.

We have fire departments to put out fires.

What is your focus?

Make sure it receives a prominent place on your calendar and that you do your best to follow your calendar.

Leave time for incidentals.

Leave cushion for emergencies.

Live by grace because you won’t meet all of your goals. But, know this, if you heed every urgent cry, you will meet none of them because your life will be controlled by something far less than your God-given priorities.

Live on purpose, directed by God’s master plan for your life.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’” — Luke 13:34–35