Year 7, Day 213: Luke 4

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Reading a whole chapter of Luke is a bit like drinking from a fire hose.  Blogging on a whole chapter of Luke – and keeping it concise with a common thread – is an equally difficult task.  These chapters are so rich with stories and depth and meaning that it is impossible not to leave out an interesting point.  In truth, it is impossible not to leave out more than I include.  I confess that upfront for the whole Gospel.

What I am going to look at today is the thread of progression in the early story of Jesus.  We begin with the temptation of Jesus.  I don’t think that there is any accident that the story of Jesus’ ministry starts with His temptation.  He must go out into the desert and demonstrate His dominance over his human flesh and over Satan prior to having much at all to offer other human beings. 

I think this is a highly important point.  What makes a mentor interesting isn’t really all the wisdom and insight they have to offer.  What truly makes a mentor worth having is their ability to take their insight and use it to conquer the flesh and temptation.  In other words, what makes a mentor worth having is being able to look into their life and see how their beliefs and worldview makes them different and unique.  What makes mentors so valuable is being able to see in them something that we desire to have within us.  This is why it is necessary for Jesus to go and be tempted and come out the victor.  In this act, Jesus is not only showing His dominance but putting His ability on display.  He is giving us an example to imitate.

Once He goes into the wilderness and lives out His faith, He then comes to His hometown and experiences rejection.  I think that this is another neat story to have so near the beginning.  The truth is that when we start overcoming our humanity, we will experience rejection from the world.  When we start living the truth and becoming different because of it, we will be rejected by those who don’t want to see that example.  Rejection goes hand in hand with a lived-out faith.

However, we blessedly don’t stop with rejection.  As Jesus goes out into the world, He seeks those who are willing to listen.  He finds those who will have Him make a demonstration of faith in their life and evoke change.  He seeks out those who are desiring to experience Him, embrace Him, and imitate Him.  After overcoming His flesh, after experiencing rejection, there is victory and ministry.  People are healed.  Demons are cast out.  Changes are made.

What we can learn is that while temptation is never fun and usually quite dangerous, overcoming temptation is a very good thing and leads to ministry.  The same is true about rejection.  Nobody enjoys rejection, but rejection can help define us and refine our ministry.  When we are at places in our life where we experience rejection and temptation, it is important to overcome and look for the lesson to be learned.  From that, we will often get direction within our ministry.

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