Luke 12:49-53 Lighting a Fire
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: September 15, 2018 Luke 12:49-53
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
“I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
(Understanding the Text / Revelation of God) Jesus is looking forward to the cross and the events afterwards. He knows that what He is doing will disturb the status quo. He is trying to prepare His disciples for the earthquake that will shake up the world that they grew up in. The Jewish nation was about to be split apart, not by some invading army or idol worship, but by the new way that God would be relating to it. Thousands of years of predictions and interactions were about to come to a close, and a new beginning was about to commence. Israel would cease to be God’s protected political group based on physical traits and relationships. The old ways of relating to the world were about to end, and a totally new way of interacting with God was about to begin. It had already begun, but the nation and the disciples did not realize it yet. The disciples believed that their lives had been changed dramatically by their interactions with Jesus, but they hadn’t seen anything yet. They were still working within the traditional Jewish system, following a rabbi in the traditional Jewish way, offering sacrifices, circumcising their children on the eighth day, avoiding Gentiles, and keeping their knowledge of God to themselves. Jesus was about to bust that system wide open with His death and resurrection. There was no longer any need for a protected political unit to safeguard the coming of the Messiah. He was here and everything was going forward full steam ahead. In a matter of a few months, Israel would be asked to transform and become a spiritual state rather than a political entity. The sacrifices would cease; in A.D. 70, the earthly temple would be destroyed, never to be needed again. God had come and dwelt in a human body, and would continue to dwell in humans rather than walls from then on. Jesus had become the conduit through which the Holy Spirit could be in every human who consented.
Thought about temples: a temple is simply a place where God lives. That is God’s definition of temple: His place where He is welcome to be and where He lives in a special way that is different from the fact that He is everywhere. There was a time when that place was a physical location, first in a tent and later in a building, but Jesus was about to loose God from the restrictions of a single building and give Him access to temples of flesh. In becoming human and then dying for our sins and rising again, Jesus gave “legal” access to humans again. In the garden, humans rejected God’s sovereignty. At the cross, Jesus won sovereignty of humans for God. I guess that is one of the differences of the Spirit’s working before Pentecost and afterwards. Before, He could only speak directly through prophets. I’m still not sure how that worked, but anyway, after Pentecost, He could be actively speaking directly to any human who accepted Jesus as their Lord. I have to think about this some more.
The word that Jesus uses for fire is /poor/ which according to Strong’s is “A primary word; “fire” (literally or figuratively, specifically lightning): – fiery, fire.” I’m not sure what Jesus is saying here, but it may have something to do with Hebrews/Deuteronomy. “for our God is a consuming fire.”(Heb 12:29). It also may have something to do with the Holy Spirit. John said that Jesus came to baptize the world with the Spirit and with fire. Is it a destroyer or a purifier or both? I think it is transformation-destroying the old and creating a new pure form. Whatever it was, Jesus wished that it was already starting. Was this because He wanted to see change in the humans or because He wished that all the pain were finally ended? I think the latter based on the next sentence where Jesus says that He has a baptism to be baptized with. This brings up the spiritual meaning of baptism-death and resurrection. Jesus is not looking forward to the cross. He wished that it were already finished.
Jesus would be transformed before He asked His people to transform into something new, but once that transformation began, it would cause a division in the Jewish nation that would run through families and friends separating them from each other. Society would never be the same.
(Application / Prayer) I see that the world was transformed, and yet I also see that Satan was able to subvert the church just as he had the Jewish nation. It seems that we have failed as much as Israel did. Yet, You still insist on calling us beautiful. I pray for transformation so that I will not fail You. I pray for Joy so that I will reflect You. I pray for the Holy Spirit living in me and creating in me a being who knows You and loves You and is the image of You.