Luke 16:14-18 God Knows Your Heart
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: October 4 & 5, 2018 Luke 16:14-18
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.
The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void. “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.
(Understanding the Passage) Jesus had just finished telling the parable of the bad manager and said that people could not serve two masters: love of money and God. The Pharisees were convicted that Jesus was speaking to them. However, they reacted to that conviction by attacking Jesus. Rather than hear and listen to the message, they insulted the messenger. Jesus responded by telling them that they could justify themselves before people, but God Himself knew their hearts and would judge what was there. Guzik’s commentary points out “Often we reject the message of Jesus because it hits too close to home.”
(Revelation of God) Jesus says clearly that the things that men value highly are abominations to God, especially wealth. According to the SDA commentary the word for abomination is /bdelugma/ which means “a putrid thing” or “a detestable thing.” Why was the love of wealth putrid to God? Because it encourages people to exalt themselves. Our self pride always ends up debasing us and hurting others. When we think too highly of ourselves, we judge others and lower them down. When we exalt God and focus on Him, we will place others at a higher level in our estimation and treat them with kindness and love. The SDA commentary says that the Pharisees viewed wealth as a sign that God was giving His blessing to a person. This attitude was actually an abomination to God representing Him as giving advantages to one group and punishing another group. In another place Jesus points out “so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). Jesus was proclaiming that God treats both the good and evil evenhandedly. To suggest otherwise is a lie of Satan. Satan says that God plays favorites. “Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” (Job 1:9-11). The Pharisees’ greed for riches was based on Satan’s accusations about God’s character, which were that God played favorites. The Pharisees were sure that they were God’s favorites, and the tax collectors were God’s enemies. Even today we do something similar. We overlook our own falseness by pointing out someone else’s issues.
(Understanding the Text) “The Law and the Prophets were until John” This refers to the Old Testament. The SDA commentary says “When He declared, ‘but I say unto you’ (see on v. 22), the contrast He drew between the teachings of the OT and His teachings was not intended to diminish the value or importance of the former, but rather to free them from the narrow concepts of the Jews of His day and to amplify and strengthen them.” This is a thought I have not dwelt on before. The Jews of Jesus’ day had narrowed and narrowed down the teachings of the Old Testament until they had no life in them and were dry, dead ideas. Have we Christians done that to some of the teachings of the Bible by making them two-dimensional proofs rather than the full-textured ideas that they are? In simplifying for ease of teaching and argument, have we oversimplified for ourselves so that we do not see the real truth in our “truths”. I think that the movements nowadays are a reaction against several generations in the past who deadened the Bible’s spiritual truths. I think many are attempting to fill in the emptiness of these truths that have been narrowed to lifelessness by past generations. The problem is that some are trying to fill Bible truth with their own twisted ideas.
Everyone forces his way into it. I do not understand this unless Jesus was accusing the Pharisees of forcing their own ways into His message rather than accepting it. Satan’s way is coercion, but the way of the kingdom of God is choice. The Pharisees were trying to force their way in using their own methods rather than entering by the way of God. This was true of the other people. Everyone wants heaven to change to fit them. They try to force it to shift shapes instead of letting themselves be transformed to fit heaven.
The Law and the Prophets is the Old Testament. The Old Testament pointed to the Messiah. When John began his ministry, a new phase began. Now, the Messiah was here and teaching of heaven. God had become man for our sakes and was bringing humans back into the heavenly fold. Jesus was telling the Pharisees that they were throwing their weight around trying to force the Messiah to be what they wanted instead of simply accepting the Messiah for who He was.
Maybe another way to understand it is something like what Guzik’s commentary says “In Jesus’ day, there were hundreds of revolutionaries willing to use great violence to bring in the kingdom of God. While we do not imitate their violence, we do imitate their dedication, their willingness to sacrifice, and their passion to see the Messiah reign. We are at war!” I do not think the second part of his application is on target, but maybe we are still trying to define the message. Maybe instead of following the message as given to us, we are trying to force the message to change for us. We want to be part of the kingdom without becoming a true part of the kingdom. We want the kingdom to adapt to us. I don’t know. I’m still not clear on this.
The divorce business seemed like a non sequitur until I looked at it spiritually. The Pharisees were divorcing themselves from their God by rejecting the Messiah. They were committing adultery, and anyone who joined in with them was also committing spiritual adultery from God. Guzik’s commentary says about these verses ” But if you won’t respond to what God has clearly shown you (such as what the Bible teaches about divorce), how can you hope to receive His Word on other things? We must be careful that we never do what the Pharisees did: show an outward agreement with the word of God, but inwardly resisting it and thus denying it.”
It occurs to me that maybe divorce was one area where the Pharisees were rejecting the law of God in order to serve themselves. The SDA commentary says that the divorce issue was an example of a situation where the Pharisees had voided the law. In their narrowing down of the Old Testament ideas, they had made numerous traditions and laws which actually subverted God’s intent and created an abomination. Divorce was an example of this. Maybe, this example was part of their whole mindset of rejecting people. They rejected the sinners and tax collectors; they rejected those who were poor; and they rejected their own wives when they did not live up to the impossible standards of the Pharisees. Divorce was just one more symptom of the Pharisees’ rejection of God in favor of their own worldly focus.
(Application / Prayer) My application for myself is that I cannot trust my own nature to determine what is good and desirable. My nature will choose worldly things that are abominations to God. Instead, I need to submit myself to the Spirit’s leading. Only then will I desire the ways of the kingdom of heaven. Transform me so that I never choose abominations over You.