Author: Ben Bourland

Now while Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee invited Him to take dinner with him, so He entered and reclined at table.
  The Pharisee noticed and was astonished [to see] that Jesus did not first wash before dinner.
  But the Lord said to him, Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside you yourselves are full of greed and robbery and extortion and malice and wickedness.
  You senseless (foolish, stupid) ones [acting without reflection or intelligence]! Did not He Who made the outside make the inside also?
  Luke 11:37-40 [AMP]

Today I finished Luke 11 which from 37 onward is this interaction with a Pharisee who invited Jesus to dinner (or lunch as it can be interpreted) and then follows with a list of “Woe’s” to both Pharisees and Lawyers of the day.

My main focus is this discussion before eating with the Pharisee. 1) Jesus once against discerns the thoughts of the Pharisee and confronts the man on the tradition of washing from one’s hands the sin of the world before eating. It was a process described in minute detail in the Mishnah of ceremonially cleansing oneself before eating a meal. Jesus adeptly calls out the irony in this action in that it does nothing for the thing that actually matters….the condition of a person’s heart in the sight of God.

We all know that the Pharisees were so infatuated with how they were perceived on the outside even though they, on the inside, were corrupt and evil. None of the inside condition was out of the sight of God…He sees it all. Jesus goes as far to say that they are foolish and senseless in their actions. With just a little bit of reflection, the Pharisee would see the craziness of operating this way.

Application:

I have been guilty of paying more attention to my behavior than the condition of my heart. I will say that the focus of my motives and ‘why I do what I do’ has been on the forefront of my mind lately. This is in all aspects of my life: as a dad, husband, manager, leader, friend, and son. Am I just washing my hands and outside of my cup/plate…or, am I looking for the grime that is on the inside that can taint and sour the goodness of what the Lord wants to do in me. It all has to flow from a place of being sold out to my Lord and Savior. That cannot be unless I am consistently cleaning house and leaving my sin nailed to that tree on Golgotha.

Yesterday my family treated me to an awesome Birthday full of memories and fun. They whisked me off to Leavenworth, WA where we did a toboggan roller coaster, had crepes, ziplining, and just wonderful time together. I am so very blessed to have the family I do.

My reading today is Luke 33-36 which follows in the Amplified.

No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or crypt or under a bushel measure, but on a lampstand, that those who are coming in may see the light.
 Your eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye (your conscience) is sound and fulfilling its office, your whole body is full of light; but when it is not sound and is not fulfilling its office, your body is full of darkness.
  Be careful, therefore, that the light that is in you is not darkness.
  If then your entire body is illuminated, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright [with light], as when a lamp with its bright rays gives you light. Luke 11:33-36 [AMP]

This is a very well-known passage of Jesus talking about the witness of those in the past of other prophets like Jonah and yet the One they have with them now is greater. When Jesus talks about the ‘eye’ being the lamp of the body, the amplified called this your conscience and I think ‘your perspective’ is another good definition. What you fill your eyes with impacts the whole body. The eyes have a job that is involved in almost everything the rest of the body does. When the eyes have a singlemindedness focused on good, then the whole body will do good. However, when the eyes are focused on evil then the ‘whole’ body is consumed with darkness.

Another point that I takeaway is what verse 33 says about hiding the light. It’s not that it can’t be seen if it is hidden, it also cannot fill the space with light. Meaning, its not just to be seen but to illuminate.

Application:

Are my eyes fixed on RIGHTEOUSNESS? Have I really taken the perspective that what I fill my eyes with is in direct relation to the state of the rest of my body. Do I allow myself to watch movies, ‘reels’, or any other content that is not filling my body with the light of uprightness? Am I allowing the light of my ‘Walk with Jesus’ to fill the spaces I occupy?

My reading today was the first 4 verses of Luke 11 which is Jesus answering one of the disciples’ questions about how to pray. Luke’s recollection of this moment is a little brief compared to Matthew’s.

The reason I have titled this QTVOTD the way I have is because I kind of got into it with my oldest daughter tonight. She is not in the best form right now and I don’t think anyone would disagree but nothing she could do or poor treatment she could throw my way, could remove any of the responsibility I have to honor the Lord in my response and character with her. I was raised in a generation where respect was something that was prevalent, and we were taught to treat others a certain way. This started with being responsible for your actions and behavior. When I interpret behavior coming from my daughter as disrespect, I get “triggered” (to use one of her words). So, when I look at the ‘triggering’…what the source of that triggering is; it is a deep-seated set of rights I feel for the way I should be treated and respected.

When I look at the Lord’s prayer today it becomes clear Who my focus should be on in fear of disappointing should be…

“Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation.”

Luke 11:2-4 [ESV]

“Father, hallowed be YOUR name” — Not Ben’s name.

“Your Kingdom come” — My thoughts should not be on a yearning to receive more respect from my daughter here on earth but an anticipation of the coming of the Lord’s rule over everything…including my life…which can start now.

“Give us each day our daily bread” — As a sinner and worthy of the wrath my sin deserves, bread is an awesome provision for someone who deserves death…but no, God in His Mercy sent my Savior to rescue me from that certainty.

“and forgive us our sins,” — This should be a prayer I am praying every 5 minutes.

“for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us” — Dog gone it!! Every part of this prayer is touching on very raw nerves…too soon Lord!

“and lead us not into temptation” — James 1:13 tells us that God does not tempt us, in that, I recognize my weakness and the ease with which I give way to the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil. So, I have to pray to be delivered from them all and being responsible for my actions when I see the temptation to burst out in anger coming, I must lean into the strength of God to resist…and forgive.

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” Luke 10:22 [ESV]

I LOVE this! It is through Jesus and only through Jesus that people come to know the Father as He is.

When I look back on my life as a believer, I can see that I could never have known the Father until I had the Son IN me and I IN Him. When I read God’s Word and the Living Word speaks to me through the interpretation the Holy Spirit gives me, I am able to see the character and person of God. I see His mercy, kindness, grace, love, and holiness. This knowledge leads to a Fear of the Lord because I have been given a glimpse of the Father through the person of Jesus.

Application:

It is only through a consistent closeness with Jesus that I can know the Father. There is a really important word in the verse above -> “Chooses”. Jesus has to Choose to reveal the Father to me…this needs to become part of my prayer routine…to ask Jesus to reveal the Father. The more I know God in all three persons, the more I will live with my view and focus on the hope of Heaven to come. I will also be more aligned to what the Lord’s direction in my life.

First day back to work after vacation and it was definitely a case of “the Monday’s”. Working to get back in the rhythm of normal daily life. Yesterday’s sermon on “Green Pastures” by Pastor Steve was exactly what we needed returning from a good vacation away but looking toward the busy couple of weeks ahead. Marianne’s photography business is doing very well and she is almost full up with work for this summer’s Senior Portraits run. On top of that we are coming up to seeing Bella off on a world wide missions trip for 6 months and the rest of the kiddos starting school…however, that also means its Football Season!

My reading today was Luke 10:13-20 where Jesus talks about unrepentant cities and the cost of rejecting His gospel when it comes by way His messengers. My focus though was drawn to these verses:

And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”

Luke 10:18-20 [NKJV]

As the 70 returned from their missions that Jesus sent them out on, they were talking about all that they were able to do in Jesus’ name; including the demons being ‘subject to them’. Jesus talks to them about this ability and power He has given them but then He is quick to remind them not to let this go to their heads…no, rejoice in that their reward and security are in heaven. Jesus wants their attention to be on the things that last rather than the earthly things. Even the people they prayed over and saw delivered from demons would still one day pass-away. Jesus wants His church’s perspective to always be centered on pointing people to the hope of being with Christ forever. There is work to be done and God gives us the calling and wisdom to execute the building of His Kingdom here on earth….but we should ever have our view in our windshield be the life in heaven that is awaiting us.

And it happened, as He was alone praying, that His disciples joined Him, and He asked them, saying, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”
  So they answered and said, “John the Baptist, but some say Elijah; and others say that one of the old prophets has risen again.”
  He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
  Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.” Luke 9:18-20 [NKJV]

As I was reading this passage today it just made me think about how our world constantly tries to come up with someone Jesus is other than the Messiah. Even here ‘The Messiah” was not one of the ‘persons’ the disciples rattled off as who people said He was. It is just too hard to come to terms with Who Jesus is as the Messiah…because what it would mean is that people would have to admit that He is the answer, that He should be the person that they should worship, that He is exactly Who He says He is. The day will come when every knee will bow and worship Jesus for Who He truly is.

God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name, which is above every name, ​so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

Philippians 2:9-10

Application:

QUESTION: Am I already acknowledging Jesus and bowing to His name even now…before He returns in person? I am convicted by the fact that there are actions/times in my life that relegate Jesus to being ‘resurrected prophet’, ‘John the Baptist’, or ‘Elijah’. That He does not own the throne of my life…because in those places I have a different name on that throne. Between the sermon this morning by Pastor Koby and now this time in God’s Word, I need to not live for every day but to live for “Well done good and faithful servant”. This means living and making the most of every 5 minutes, an eternally focused 5 minutes.

For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written:
“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will acknowledge God.’”
So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

Romans 14:10-12

Today was a mixed bag. It started out with me needing to go into work for a bit. We had a late breaking software change that was going to be a good win if it worked but we needed to have the confidence we didn’t break something else before Monday. In order to keep from my team having to come in before a super busy week, I chose to go instead. It paid off and the Dev Team was able to fix a pretty nasty bug in the experience. Picture below is me in the empty building at work this morning.

But then I came home and released Marianne to get started on a bunch of work that had been piling up on her and I took the Littles. Bella is still not feeling well so she was in bed and Sophie was spending the whole day with a neighborhood friend. What we decided to do was both good for me and for the Littles. They came with me for a little ‘Twighlight Golfing’. We had a wonderful time and the girls really enjoyed the cart and looking for golf balls. The pace of play was pretty bad so we joined up with Mr. Steve who was really nice.

For there were about five thousand men.
 Then He said to His disciples, “Make them sit down in groups of fifty.”  And they did so, and made them all sit down.
 Then He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude.  So they all ate and were filled, and twelve baskets of the leftover fragments were taken up by them. Luke 9:14-17 [NKJV]

The miracle of the feeding of 5000 is a little crazy. First, the Bible says that it was about 5000 men, but we are pretty confident that there were women and children with them…but let’s just stick with 5000 for a minute. Jesus tells the disciples to have all of the people to sit down in groups of 50…this is 100 groups! Just picture this in your mind’s eye, on a hillside with 100 groups of 50 people. Just the orchestration of making this group separation happen is pretty crazy.

The other thing that stood out to me was that Jesus looked up into Heaven. I used to kind of get on myself for looking up into heaven during worship or even when I pray sometimes. The reason for getting on myself is because God is right in my heart with me; the Holy Spirit dwells within me. I don’t need to look up to Heaven because He is right here. But seeing Jesus do this helps me to see that prayer and worship can also be focused on the Trinity. The Holy Spirit lives within me here on earth, but we together can petition, serve, and address God the Father and Jesus the Son in Heaven. There is something quite powerful about this if you keep it within that context.

Application:

First off, the feeding of the five thousand is a continuation of yesterday’s points about Jesus’ caring heart and tenderness He shows us. Second, Praying and Worshiping while looking up to Heaven is a powerful acknowledgement of the situation of our earthly state with the Holy Spirit; and the Father and Son being in Heaven. The Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf and the Son represents our needs/situation to the Father. Then through the Holy Spirit, God sends us comfort, peace, wisdom, knowledge, and strength. So, gazing up into Heaven during worship and prayer is 100% appropriate in my book.