You will never meet a more generous giver than God! There have been some incredibly generous people in this world. Names of the likes of Andrew Carnegie, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet are on the list of some of the largest donors of all time, but these men can’t hold a candle to the stupendous generosity of our God! After teaching his disciples how to pray, Jesus emphasized the greatness of God’s liberality towards those who seek him. Jesus told his disciples, “And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened” (Luke 11:9–10). In our selfish human way of doing things, we sometimes make generous sounding offers while secretly hoping that the other person doesn’t take us up on it. It’s much easier to quip, “If you need anything, just let me know” than it is to give time and money to genuinely alleviate the needs of others. But when Jesus says to ask, seek, and knock, these are not begrudging invitations or hollow words designed to make God sound generous—these are commandments: Ask! Seek! Knock! God is honored when we recognize our needs and when we go to him to seek the things we need. We dishonor him when we refuse to acknowledge our inadequacies or when we turn to other avenues to try to have our deepest needs satisfied. God commands us to bring our needs and requests to him. He commands us to ask, seek, and knock.

As Jesus continued teaching, he explained that the reason why we should make our petitions to God is that God is a more generous giver than the most generous giver you can think of. If you want to see an example of generosity, look at a good father. A good father delights in giving gifts to his children. We could also extend this to grandparents. What grandparent doesn’t love giving gifts to their grandchildren and seeing the smiles on their faces and the joy in their eyes? If human fathers and grandparents, all of whom have their own sin, can give good gifts, then how much more will God be a great and generous giver? And this is exactly the comparison Jesus made when he asked, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13). The greatest proof of God’s generosity is his gift of himself to us, undeserving sinners that we are. For “he saved us (…) by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior…” (Titus 3:5-6). The gift of God’s own Spirit through Jesus Christ our Lord is the greatest gift you could ever be given. Have you received this gift from God?

On the nightstand next to my bed I keep a did-you-know, page-a-day style calendar filled with hundreds of interesting trivia facts. Each day I tear off the previous day’s page to reveal today’s new fact. In addition to learning a few interesting pieces of trivia from this daily calendar, the Lord has been using this calendar to remind me of a spiritual truth. You see, on January 1st, when this calendar was brand new, it was about two inches thick. Now, as I write this in September, the calendar is getting awfully thin. It might seem like June and July (the two middle months of the year) were not so long ago, and yet already in September as I pick up the calendar each day to tear off the top page, I can’t help but notice how thin it’s becoming. My bedside calendar has become a tangible reminder of this Biblical truth from the book of James: your life is a mist.

Like my calendar that is imperceptibly but steadily growing thinner and thinner day by day, each day in our life is another almost imperceptible step towards eternity. At best, we will live out our days to old age and see our children’s children, much like my calendar that will dwindle until it is just one page, and then its existence as we see it will come to an end. But that anticipation of old age can never rule out the possibility of our ‘calendar’ being taken away from us sooner than we thought our time would come. Friend, the reality is that one day this brief and fleeting earthly existence will come to an end, and we will stand before the Great and Holy God, there to be judged for the things we have done in the body. James tells us, “…you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14). Although James’ blunt statement on the brevity of life might at first seem to encourage pessimism, nowhere does James or any other Biblical author imply that because life is short it doesn’t matter how you spend it. In fact, the consistent teaching of the Bible is that because life is short and because our life belongs to the Lord, we must live our life for the Lord.

Because our life is a mist, we must not put off until tomorrow what ought to be done today. Do not think that you can live like the devil now and still have ample time to become right with the Lord later in life. You are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Life goes by fast; so don’t neglect those things that are most important. Spend your life for the Lord. Give your years to serving him. Use your days to know him more and more. Yield your hours, your minutes, even your moments for him to use as he sees fit.

“But that’s not fair!”—it’s one of the most common objections to hear from children when they don’t like how a situation or decision affects them and their interests. Despite the fact that our sense of justice and fairness is often obstructed or perverted by our own selfishness and pride, we are all nevertheless born with some sense of justice. Even though our actions do not always reflect what we know to be just, righteous, and fair, we nonetheless recognize the existence of such standards that are higher than our own personal preferences. The fact that we have such an innate sense for right and wrong is to be expected, given that we were created in the image of a just and righteous God. God reveals himself to us in his word as a God of justice and of mercy. He is in the right to bring justice upon the heads of the wicked, and he is in the right to show mercy to sinners when the demands of justice have been met (through the sacrifice of a substitute). In all his ways, he perfectly exhibits justice and righteousness. “The LORD is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works” (Psalm 145:17). We see this righteousness of God exhibited even in the way he administers justice to the wicked. Because he is omniscient, the Lord can give perfect justice. The Bible teaches that even in his judgment against the wicked, God gives punishments that take into account the culpability of the one punished. Consider Jesus’ teachings in Luke 10, in the context of his limited commission to the disciples:

“Whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town. Woe to you Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more bearable in the judgement for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades.” (Luke 10:10–15).

This passage shows us that those cities which rejected Jesus would be worthy of greater punishment on the day of judgement than Sodom and Tyre and Sidon, ancient cities from the time of the Old Testament that were notoriously wicked. His perfect knowledge—knowing that Tyre and Sidon would have repented if they had seen Jesus’ mighty works—means that he perfectly administers the justice that is deserved. Our God, the judge of all the earth, will always do what is right. Let us praise God for both his mercy and his justice.

In several different areas of my life, I have experienced the truth of the fact that the things that are hardest are often the most rewarding and beneficial experiences. In college, the hardest classes with the most demanding professors are usually the ones in which you learn the most. They are also usually the classes that build the strongest sense of camaraderie among the students. When you’re hiking or camping, the longest and most difficult trails often lead to the most breathtaking scenery, delighting your eyes with remote and expansive vistas that could never be reached by a short, easy trail. Simply put, the best things in life are seldom easy. 

It’s easy to recognize this truth in areas of our life related to education, career, health, and recreation, but let’s not forget that something very similar is also true of our walk with the Lord. It would be a grave mistake to assume that following Jesus should be an easy matter. When you’re in the thick of it this week and it feels like the hardest thing in the world to make that Christ-like decision, speak that Christ-like word, or offer that Christ-like forgiveness, remember that there is growth in the struggle. And remember that a life of self-denial is exactly what our Lord has called us to as his followers. But remember also that you have a soul that is daily becoming either more godly or more ungodly, that there is eternity in the balance, and that just a moment in the presence of God will make all the sufferings in this life be forgotten. Without the motivation that comes from these truths, we will balk at Jesus’ stringent call to discipleship. Listen to what he said to his disciples. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:23–24).

Jesus’ program for following him includes three elements. First, you must deny yourself. We naturally tend to regard our own wants and wishes and comfort as the most important values for decision-making in life, but when we become a follower of Jesus, self gets displaced and instead of doing what we want to do, we do what Christ wants us to do. Second, you must take up your cross. God asks everything of us, including potentially our very life. If you wake up every morning and begin your day intent on living your life for God, even if that means dying for him, then the actual inconveniences you will face most days will seem quite small by comparison. Third, you must follow him. Jesus’ teachings and the example of his life become the example we seek to reproduce in our life. None of this will be easy, but God’s blessings for those who deny self, take up the cross, and follow Jesus will make it all so worth it!

Have you ever experienced the awkward situation when someone else thinks that he is your best friend, when in reality you feel like you barely know him? Sometimes asymmetrical relationships form in which one party greatly overestimates the closeness of the relationship. Occasionally, someone will do this in a way that is very inviting and makes it really easy to get to know the other person quickly and build a new friendship, but other times this mismatch in assessment of the relationship tees you up for some awkward moments.

Tragically, many people wrongly assess their relationship with Jesus, never stopping to listen to what he actually said about following him or to discern if they actually have a relationship with Jesus. Others seem to act on the assumption that Jesus will be there for them when they need him, and that the rest of the time he kindly steps out of the way so as not to interfere with their lifestyle and choices. But blindly presuming that we have a relationship with Jesus and treating Jesus as if he is a genie in a bottle is a spiritually fatal mistake. If you have gone through life assuming that you are right with Jesus simply because you were born into a Christian home or because you go to church sometimes and haven’t committed “really bad” sins, then I implore you to listen to Jesus in order to find out what he says about how to be right with him. If God is convicting you that you have treated your relationship with the Lord as something that should benefit your life and cost you nothing, then I implore you to listen to Jesus to find out what he expects us to give up for him. 

Jesus said, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it” (Luke 8:19–21, emphasis added). In another place, Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21, emphasis added). Jesus’s haunting warning reminds us that there will be many people who thought that they were best friends with Jesus, when in reality they were strangers to him because they had never listened to his word and pursued God’s will in life. Let these words of Jesus recalibrate your understanding of what it means to have a relationship with Jesus. The only way to have a relationship with Jesus is not on our terms, but on his terms: hear the word of God and do the will of God. Don’t wait until judgement day to find out if you have a relationship with Jesus. Find out today what Jesus says about following him so that you can have a genuine relationship with him and be filled with hope!

Résumés are funny things, aren’t they? Sometimes a résumé can just feel like an excuse to brag about yourself, and even those who don’t outright lie on a résumé may be tempted to embellish things a little bit in their favor. For example, why not describe yourself as a “classic Italian cuisine transporter” even if you are just a pizza delivery guy? (It’s absurd, but I’ve heard about someone that put that on his résumé!) Some people spend a whole career chasing accolades for their résumé, only to realize too late that they put way too much value and identity in their résumé and that life has passed them by. As tragic as that is, it’s even more tragic to put our trust in our spiritual résumé, thinking that God will somehow be impressed by our goodness or merit. One of Jesus’ encounters with a Roman officer in the gospel of Luke shows us that when we approach our Lord, our trust must not be in our merits, but in his power and goodness.

The interaction took place in the town of Capernaum, a town that was home to a garrison of Roman soldiers whose very presence was detested by many of Jesus’ fellow Jews. A certain Roman centurion sent some elders of the Jews to Jesus to beg him to come heal one of the centurion’s beloved servants. These men chose to make their appeal to Jesus based on the merits of the centurion. “He is worthy to have you do this for him,” they said, “for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue” (Lk. 7:4–5). 

The centurion then sent additional messengers to Jesus with his own words, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am unworthy to have you come under my roof. Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed… When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, ‘I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith’” (Lk. 7:6–7, 9). The elders appealed to Jesus based on their perception of the centurion’s worthiness, but the centurion himself appealed to Jesus’ power and goodness, demonstrating that he was willing to submit to and trust in Jesus’ authority.

Let me ask you, when you approach our Lord in prayer to ask him for something, on what basis do you make your request? Do you ask him to do things for you because you think you deserve it? Or do you ask him to display his power and authority in your life for his glory, knowing full well that you are unworthy of his grace? We have no merit of our own with which to appeal to God. So when you pray, approach our Lord with both humility and trust, the way this centurion did when he said “Lord, I am unworthy. But say the word…”

We more naturally feel love for those who are our family and for those who love us in return, but does that make us loving people? And if the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself, do we fulfill that command simply by loving those who love us in return? Jesus’ words in Luke 6 clearly show us that much more is required of us if we would love others the way God would have us to love. As Jesus explains in these verses, we are called to practice a higher form of love than just loving those whom it is easy to love. Listen to Jesus’s words in Luke 6, “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. (…) If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. (…) But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:27–36).

In contrast to merely loving those who love us in return or those for whom we have some natural familial affection, Jesus challenges us to love in a much more radical way. He challenges us to love not for what we can get in return, but to selflessly love in a way that reflects God’s merciful and gracious character to the world around us. Whether your ‘enemy’ is someone who actively seeks your harm or just someone who goes out of their way to deliberately annoy you at work, we are called to genuinely love and seek the best interests of everyone, even those whom it is hard to love.

Jesus, of course, is the perfect example of this. In his humanity during his earthly ministry, he showed us what it looks like to love our enemies. Even from the cross, he prayed for the forgiveness of the men who were taking his life. Not only did Jesus love those men who were physically crucifying him, but he even loved you and me while we were God’s enemies. Romans 5:10 declares, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” Who can possibly follow in Jesus’ footsteps and love in this way? The answer: only those who have known the perfect love of God in Christ Jesus. Only when we have received and experienced his love can we be free to love others—even enemies—like Christ loves us.

We live in a busy world. While it is good to be busy with good things, there is such a thing as being too busy for your own good. Our culture often sends the message that your worth is tied to your productivity, so we constantly try to multitask as we move from one overcommitment to the next. This is not to say that hard work is bad. A Christian ethic of work teaches us to work hard, be diligent, and faithfully look after our responsibilities in life. But beyond our responsibilities, sometimes we’re just too busy. When we look at the life of Jesus, we discover a litmus test that you can apply to your life to determine if you are too busy: if you are too busy to pray, you are too busy.

Jesus was clearly a busy man. His public ministry entailed long journeys, hours of teaching, and endless crowds pressing in on him, hoping to be healed. Led by his compassion for the people who were “like sheep without a shepherd” he gave sacrificially of his time and energy for the well-being of others. But in the middle of such a busy ministry, Jesus still made time for prayer. And he didn’t just make time for prayer once in a while, when things were slow; he made a practice of praying because he knew how important it was to stay close to the Father and to nurture his relationship with his Father while in his ministry on the earth. In Luke 5:15–16 we read, “But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.” Luke indicates that Jesus’ practice of withdrawing to remote places for prayer was not a sporadic occurrence, but a regular habit of his.

If Jesus was as busy as he was and yet still prioritized time to spend in prayer with the Father, surely we can do the same. Let’s follow in Jesus’ footsteps and be busy with good things, but let’s not forget to protect time for praying to God. If Jesus needed an active personal devotional life, how much more so do we? How can we expect to do the will of God in our lives if we are not spending time regularly with God, both hearing from him through his word, and speaking to him in prayer? Jesus’ example shows us the importance of having time to be alone with God, even in the middle of busy seasons of life. Undoubtedly, this practice of regular time with the Father provided the fuel he needed to keep going with his ministry. So what about you? Are you busy? There’s nothing wrong with being busy with good things. But are you too busy? Do you ever have moments alone, somewhere quiet, when you can pray undistracted? Remember, if you’re too busy to pray, you’re too busy.

“No pain, no gain.” “Sore today, stronger tomorrow.” “The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle.” “Hard choices, easy life; easy choices, hard life.” These sayings are often repeated by highly motivated leaders, soldiers, and athletes to remind themselves that those who want great results in a career, on a mission, or on the ball field have to give everything in their training and preparation. These sayings and others like them remind us of the general truth that things worth doing are never easy. Understood in its right context, the same is true of our walk with the Lord. In fact, an episode from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry shows us that it is only those who deny self and submit to the plan of God who will experience the power of God at work in their lives. If you want God to powerfully work in you and if you want to be used by God in his kingdom, it is going to require an unremitting commitment to follow the will of God, come what may.

Jesus modeled this commitment during his temptations in the wilderness after his baptism, when the Holy Spirit descended on him. Luke writes, “And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil” (Luke 4:1–2). After Jesus withstood the onslaught of temptations at the merciless hands of the tempter, Luke records that “…Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country” (Luke 4:14). Jesus was full of the Spirit before the temptations, but after successfully withstanding that season of vicious temptation without ever sinning once, he came back to Galilee in the power of the Spirit. Just as the struggle that comes with lifting weights strengthens our muscles, in the same way, Jesus’ unyielding struggle against temptation filled him with the power of the Holy Spirit. 

We are to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18) to keep in step with the Spirit (Gal. 5:25) and to be led by the Spirit (Rom. 8:14), but these things cannot happen if we stubbornly cling to our own selfish will. If you feel like you lack spiritual power to face and overcome temptation, ask whether you are surrendering to the Lord or whether you are trying to hold onto some of your own will. Pray for strength to fully surrender to the Lord’s will. But if you dare pray this prayer, be ready, because the more we become like Jesus, the more we can expect to be tempted, and the more subtle the temptations may become. Remember, Satan doesn’t need to bother tempting those who are not serious about their Christian life. He reserves his attacks for those who are submitting to the Lord, for they are a great threat to his diabolical kingdom. 

Do you know the names of your grandparents’ parents? As I’m writing this, I can only think of the name of one of my eight great-grandparents. It’s a little sad to me that I don’t even know the names of most of the eight people in the world who probably had the most influence on the four people in the world who probably had the most influence on the man and woman who gave me life. But I’m interested in learning more about my ancestry and hope to preserve that information for my children and their children some day. Recent advancements in genetic testing have increased popular interest in ancestry and can yield a wealth of information about one’s ancestors. Before all our modern genetic testing and date retrieval systems, however, people recorded genealogies on paper. The Bible records many genealogies, and although they can be filled with hard-to-pronounce Semitic names, they are important components of the Biblical narratives in which they are embedded.

We find one of the genealogies in Luke 3:23–38. Like the one given in Matthew 1, this is a genealogy of Jesus, but there are several key differences. For one thing, Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus begins with Abraham and lists the descendants down to Jesus. Luke goes in the reverse order, beginning with Jesus and going all the way back to Adam, not just as far back as Abraham. Additionally, Matthew and Luke follow different branches of the family tree in the generations after King David. They also differ in their placement of the genealogy within their gospels: Matthew places the genealogy at the very beginning of his gospel, identifying who Jesus is before detailing his birth. Luke, on the other hand, places the genealogy in between Jesus’ baptism and his temptation in the wilderness, which we know happened back to back. Why interrupt the narrative to put the genealogy of Jesus in such a seemingly random place in the gospel?

Upon closer examination, Luke’s placement of the genealogy of Jesus is anything but random. He has placed the genealogy here to highlight an important truth about Jesus. Squashed in between the baptism of Jesus and his temptations (two events that share a common theme about Jesus’ identity as the Son of God), Luke uses the genealogy to point us to the fact that Jesus—the true Son of God—will succeed where Adam—the first son of God—failed. Luke writes, “…and a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’ Jesus… was… the son of Adam, the son of God” (Luke 3:23, 38). This beloved Son of God then marched into the wilderness where he faced the fiercest onslaught of temptations that the devil could muster. Jesus came to reverse the curse brought about through the sin of Adam, and he succeeded where Adam failed. He’s the son of Adam, he’s the son of God, he’s our Savior!