Shameless Audacity – Luke 11:1-13

Posted on February 14, 2022 by Steve

“I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need” (Luke 11:8, NIV).

In Luke 11:1-13 Jesus taught His disciples a lesson on how to pray. Verses 2-4 are the Luke version of The Lord’s Prayer.

The lesson begins when Jesus returned from praying and one of His disciples asked Him to teach them to pray. Jesus responded to the disciple’s request not with a set of instructions on how to pray or guidelines for showing proper devotion or gratitude to God.

Instead, Jesus replied with a curious story about approaching a neighbor in the middle of the night to ask for some food to feed an unexpected house guest.

Jesus certainly didn’t ignore devotion and gratitude as a function of prayer. In fact, He said you start prayer by acknowledging God the Father is the Provider of all that we ask and recognizing He is the Forgiver of all our sins (vs. 2-4).

But, the key ingredient of prayer in Jesus’ story is found in the the enigmatic behavior of the person making the plea for food to serve to the visitor.

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After the Screaming Stops – Psalm 3, Part 2

Posted on February 12, 2016 by Steve

“Lord, I have so many enemies! So many are standing against me.
So many are talking about me: ‘Even God won’t help him.’
But you, Lord, are my shield! You are my glory!
You are the one who restores me.
I cry out loud to the Lord and he answers me from his holy mountain.
I lie down, sleep, and wake up because the Lord helps me.
I won’t be afraid of thousands of people surrounding me on all sides.
Stand up, Lord!
Save me, my God!
In fact, hit all my enemies on the jaw; shatter the teeth of the wicked!
Rescue comes from the Lord!
May your blessing be on your people!” (Psalm 3:1-8, CEB)

When I was a young child, each summer my parents would send me and my sister to swimming lessons. But, I never really learned to swim from those swimming lessons. My swimming fail may have been due to the philosophy of teaching swimming that was used. The teaching philosophy was something along these lines: Throw them in the water and if they don’t drown, then they will swim!

The way the lessons worked was the lifeguard would show us the swimming stroke and then we would practice it in the shallow end. After practicing for a short time, the lifeguard would take us down to the deep end and make us jump off the diving board and swim to the side…whether we could swim or not!

And when you’re a little kid standing on the diving board, the water below you looks extremely deep and the distance to the side of the pool looks extremely far away!

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Who’s Got Your Back? – Psalm 3, Part 1

Posted on February 11, 2016 by Steve

Have you ever felt like your critics were starting to outnumber your allies? Maybe it seemed that way because some of your former allies turned into critics!

And, then it makes you wonder, “Who’s got my back?” Who’s on my side? Who do I trust when friends become enemies?

Undoubtedly, David felt that way when he wrote this Psalm. Only, he experienced the most extreme form of betrayal, that of his own family, his own son.

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God Will Take Notice – Exodus 2:23-25

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Steve

“The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor, and they cried out; and their cry for help ascended to God because of the difficult labor. So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the Israelites, and He took notice” (Exodus 2:23-25, HCSB).

Hundreds of years had passed since Joseph was prime minister of Egypt and had urged his father, Jacob, and his brothers to move down to Egypt. From the original seventy migrants, the Israelites had grown into a huge nation probably numbering in the millions.

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