Luke 10 - Friday 12th January

Today’s chapter is Luke 10

Tom writes:

We are pretty much halfway through Luke now and he has laid out ample evidence of Jesus’ personality (birth, baptism, miracles, transfiguration) and his plan (Luke 4 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me..., sending out of the 12). We must mark as read that Jesus is the Humble Empowered One who empowers people to humbly spread all the fruit of his salvation all across the globe. Assuming that case has been made, Luke begins to expose the key distinctives Christians need to cling to if we are indeed to be the Kingdom. We have already noted Jesus’ penchant for people who persevere; for people who don’t easily take their hand off the plough of showing mercy to others. Part-time practitioners need not apply.

In this chapter (and leaking into the next) we find Jesus going on about the one thing that is needed; the distinctive behind all the distinctives. Thank the Lord, it is not the house-work! With the anecdote about Martha and Mary, Jesus elevates the call to intimacy with God above everything else. Intimate obedience to the Father is the Kingdom. In this gospel Luke is careful to show Jesus repeatedly popping off to pray. In Acts, Luke shows the church repeatedly stopping everything to pray. What more is there to say about this? Jesus prayed with intimacy and dependence and Jesus wants his followers to pray with intimacy and dependence. Scratch that; it’s a statement that is too general and easy to wriggle away from. Let’s try this; Jesus wants me to pray with intimacy and dependence; he wants me to learn to live in intimacy with him, free from stress and worry about many things. He wants the same for you. He wants this kind of prayer to be the distinctive of our lives. He wants this for us because it is the best thing; it is what it is to be truly human. Oh God, please would you teach us to pray.

Question for reflection

What simple, achievable step could you take to upgrade your prayer life and grow in intimacy with God?