We have risen!! We have risen with Christ – this is our great blessedness
through faith in Christ Jesus.
On such a day as this, it is our praise and joy in the sacrificial death, the
greatest gift to mankind. We should hold on to this divine power in whatever our situation may be especially during this time of the pandemic.
This resurrection brought a new kingdom into our lives – now we can join
hands with all believers in the whole world in an ever-joyful life of praises in our heart with thankfulness…
The glory of the Risen Lord should shine in our hearts, for He has loved us and given us life in the risen Christ our High Priest.
This is the Gospel according to St. Luke CH 4:18 – 30 and the next of the
Chapter:
God’s authority in our hearts of faith.
I. Wretchedness removed – Risen Christ.
II. Authority among us – the Word.
III. Poverty of Heart – Rule by grace.
It is an illusion to think that our leaders are really in control of our lives. As
citizens, we elect them and thereafter agree to subject ourselves to their
authoritarian rule. We also constantly remove them because of their poor
performance. But we fail to see that leaders and their subjects are all under
the grip of the invisible hand of the devil, who controls the world directly and through our leaders. The devil on the other hand usurped control of all earthly kingdoms and pays each one of us with the coin of death at the end of our earthly existence – our terrible wretchedness.
Jesus’s ministry opened people’s eyes to their wretchedness and how we can be freed by the established rule of grace.
At the peak of his ministry, he was accepted superficially by everyone and
everywhere he went because of his miraculous works (this is what we see on every Palm Sunday in our synagogues today.)
The choice of his passage in Chapter 4 of Luke’s Gospel was masterful; it
introduced him to the people as the Christ, the Messiah, the King of Kings,
someone with divine power, in fact as God – to do what no man can do.
It was a dramatic moment when he used the very words picked from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, whom they reverenced. The great Saviour and King was in their midst in the person of Jesus, the carpenter’s foster Son, whom they knew so well.
He read:
“The spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to preach Good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour”
Luke Chapter 4:16 – 20
- For eternal life as opposed to the grip of sin and death.
- He thereby revealed the poverty of our hearts.
Refer to “True Faith Revealed”
