Please read the chapters (highlighted in bold) before you read my notes on them. Thank you.
There are several things to be learned from this chapter, mainly centering around human responsibilities. The most obvious is this; don’t crush yourself by having too many things to do. It can be easy to build up a busy, somewhat efficient lifestyle and truck along through the days, months, weeks, etc. and eventually run yourself into the ground. We, being puny mortals, need rest. If you try to take on the world and do everything, you are going to wear out, and when you are worn out, you become inefficient in serving the Lord. Think of it like this: if you pass out in the middle of doing a job because you didn’t get enough sleep the night before, you’re not doing a very good job are you? We need to let ourselves rest, to take good advice from godly people, and don’t try to do everything. The Lord has given us different gifts and jobs for a reason.
The second important thing to learn is also related to responsibility to the Lord. When we are doing a work for Him, we will need to leave behind parts of our comfortable (whether physically comfortable or just familiar) lives to do His work, because His work is greater. It may not always be family that you’re leaving behind, like Moses had to, but it will happen. And if you come to a sharp crossroads where you must leave everything to serve as you are called, then surely do so. God is the most important thing in your life, and everyone else’s lives, whether you acknowledge Him as so or not. And if you do not properly love Him, you will not properly serve Him. (Matthew 10:37-39)
Zacchaeus had the correct response to the Lord. He cast aside his own desires, welcomed the Lord, and, after welcoming and following Christ, served Him by not only giving back everything he had stolen, but giving back an abundance more. This should be out response to the Lord as well. He has given us so much, how can we do anything but give Him all we have?
As it says is the previous chapter to this one (Luke 18:28-30), our reward is in Heaven. We have no need for anything here. Our entire purpose in being, well, still on earth is to share the Gospel, the Truth, the entire Word of God. Our responsibility towards Christ as His servants is a double edged sword, we must burn our love for sin, suffer the losses necessary to further His gospel, and use our whole lives to share the Truth with others. Well, I guess that’s a triple edged sword.
It is our duty to do well with what He has given us (salvation, The Holy Spirit for discerning, talents, skills, life in the first place, the world, the universe, every good thing we could possibly have in life). He isn’t physically with us at the moment, but He is coming back, and He wants to find us serving Him and using all we can for Him out of our lives. We want to be like the servant who made ten minas out of one. We want to hear Jesus say, “Well done, good and faithful servant” when He comes back.
Because He will return (judging by prophecy, most likely soon), and as a victorious King, not submissive, riding in on a donkey. And He’ll clean out the filthy, wicked, and wolves from among His people. Serve Him, even if you don’t do a great work, serve Him. You don’t want Him coming back to find you serving your own desires and living your life how you want it, now do you?
He drives out the wicked.
God created all and holds all together. (Colossians 1:16-17) And in His creation He rules justly. Nothing happens that He does not permit. He knows all things, is in all things, and all things are His. This is what Elihu (Job 32:1-5) was emphasizing.
We cannot accuse God of anything when we are so deeply indebted to Him for our own sin. He allows us to live in the first place, so how can we accuse Him?
We cannot.
Repentance, is, of course the only way to salvation (v. 31-33, 1 John 1:8-10). We have no righteousness apart from Him. In other words; no excuses. We have nothing that can stand up to Him. We cannot accuse God of making any mistakes, because,
“It is unthinkable that God would do wrong, that the Almighty would pervert justice.” Job 34:12
We must, instead of accusing Him of wrong that He cannot and will not commit, look to ourselves, examine ourselves through the lens of the Word, and repent of anything we’ve done, whether that be a great abomination of a sin, or simply turning from Him to ourselves to see what to do and what is right.
He cannot do any wrong; trust Him, and no one else. If you don’t trust Him, how can you give everything up unto Him and serve Him fully, loving Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength?
Our service to Christ may lead us into painful, even violent circumstances. Even more so, we have a constant battle within ourselves, between the flesh and the Spirit.
Yet, even as we are weak, He is strong. And He gives us the strength to continue preaching the truth. We aren’t called to be geniuses. We aren’t called to be fantastic speakers or to be skilled persuaders. We have one mission, and a clear way to go about it;
“Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the Word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:2
Share the truth. That is our job. We are witnesses of the Lord and His kingdom. Ambassadors to the lost souls of this world. For we are to do as He, to seek and lead the lost to the truth. (Luke 19:9-10)
We must not lose heart, for He is our hope and strength. He is the light that we are to reflect.
Serve Him with all your strength in whatever you do. (Colossians 3:17, Philippians 2:14-16 & 3:7-9)
“Therefore do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far our weighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
A Grain of Salt 