City Life Starter

Written by Paul Lane

The Word

¹⁴ The Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,
    cursed are you above all livestock
    and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
    and dust you shall eat
    all the days of your life.
¹⁵ I will put enmity between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
    and you shall bruise his heel.”

Genesis 3:14-15 ESV

¹⁶ And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. ¹⁷ And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

²⁰ And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹ And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Luke 4:16-21 ESV

³¹ And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And he was teaching them on the Sabbath, ³² and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority. ³³ And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, ³⁴ “Ha! [Leave us alone] What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” ³⁵ But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. ³⁶ And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” ³⁷ And reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region.

Luke 4:31-37 ESV

Reflection

Why did Jesus perform miracles?  If you focused on the typical presentations of miracles today, one might think that each miracle was God’s way of saying “I love you.”  For the people who have received miracles and have experienced a changed life because of that love, I say bless you, but it is important to understand that only a few miracles recorded in the Bible indicate that Jesus says that He loved the person.

To be clear, I do think that Jesus loved the people He healed.  Surely, He also loved the people He confronted in the synagogue, but we must look deeper than that. In the early part of this chapter Jesus reads a passage from Isaiah which explains why He will do miracles.  In verse 18 it says that He has been anointed to perform these miracles.  Said simply, God told Him to do it, that’s why He does it; Jesus practiced obedience.

After the Fall of Man in the Garden, God explained the consequence of this Fall.  First on the list was the consequence that Satan would experience.  God says that the offspring of the woman that Satan deceived will bruise his head.  This is the fulfillment of God’s consequence.  Fallen man is to be unfallen by Jesus, and boy do the devils know it.  This is why the demon so quickly says to Jesus, “Ha!” or “leave us alone.” 

Demons do not challenge Jesus to a fight.  They would rather bargain because they know what is coming.  They are resigned to their final end, so they play for time.  This reaction is very similar to a toddler who is about to have their favorite toy taken away because of something bad they had done.  Let us not be the type of toy that resist this rescue.  Let us also take courage from this.  See how confident the demons are in what is to come.  Why shouldn’t we also have this kind of confidence in our future, given that we know how it ends?

Application

Yes, look to the Lord for your provision, your healing, and your supply, but do not stop there.  Look to the Lord’s Kingdom as the place you most properly belong, and to His work as the thing in which you are to be most properly engaged.  Jesus says that He only does what the Father has set out for Him to do.  We should do likewise.

Prayer

Dear Lord, I am thankful that Jesus is faithful to the call You placed before Him, and I would like to do likewise.  Teach me the good I am to do and give me the strength of will to fulfill it always.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.