FBC Daily Devotional – June 10, 2021

Well a good Thursday to you, so we're past the midpoint of the week, and I trust your week

has gone well and gearing up toward the weekend.

Enjoy the weekends because we gather together as God's people and we get to worship the Lord together, and

this is just a highlight of the week.

I hope it is for you.

It certainly is for me, and it's not just because I get to preach the word, but I get to

gather together with God's people, and you know the the singing of hymns and worship together is just a

it's just an encouraging and lifting of the Spirit's point in

time in the week, and then of course what we learn and gather in gathering together and focusing on the word

is a particular blessing as well.

Well speaking of focusing on the word, back in the book of Luke, you know the other day we looked at

Luke in chapter 4 where you know Jesus is in Nazareth, and he's rejected.

He says something that people don't like, and they want to kill him.

They want to get him out of there, and he leaves.

He goes away.

Quite the opposite is what happens in Capernaum.

He goes to Capernaum and has a very very

successful, if you will, response.

People respond well.

He heals people.

He does all kinds of things.

He casts out an unclean spirit.

He heals Peter's mother -in -law.

Many many people are healed.

We read at the end of near the end of the chapter, verses 40 and 41, at the end of the

Sabbath, you know people come together, and a lot of people end up being healed, and you know Jesus is

just growing.

His popularity is just growing, and people are coming from all over to to hear him teach

and to experience experience the miracles that he performs.

Again, quite a significant difference from from the response he got

in Nazareth, and yet what's interesting about what happens in Capernaum,

and we've seen we've seen this before, I think we looked at this in the Gospel of Mark, is that

when when Jesus' popularity increases, and more and more people are wanting to come

and get to him, if he thought like we normally would think,

he would stay there and just keep building a crowd, building momentum from that

crowd, and that's really kind of what the disciples are encouraging him to do, aren't they?

We read.

In verse 42 and following, verse 42, Jesus went out in the morning after this

very effective evening of healing and so forth on at the end of the Sabbath.

It says in the daytime in the morning, he departed and went into a deserted place.

He went out there to get alone and to get with the Father in prayer and so forth.

He went to a deserted place and the crowd sought him and they came to him

and they tried to keep him from leaving from leaving them.

And wow, you know people really want me.

I better stay and give them what they want.

No, that's not how Jesus responds.

What he says is I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also because for

this purpose I have been sent.

So what Jesus is communicating here is that he has a clear sense of purpose.

He knows very well what his purpose is and he needs to stay on mission.

To stay.

Focused on that purpose.

And you know having a good sense of purpose, a clear sense of mission, will do

that for us.

It will help us to stay on target.

It'll help keep us from being pulled away into areas and into things that

take us away from our mission and keep us from accomplishing what we have been called to do and

what we ought to do because of our our gifting our talents and how God has.

As.

As how God has equipped us.

So Jesus' mission, Jesus' mission was preaching the good news of the kingdom and to do so

widely.

It was not to stay in one place and to build up a big following and because of his mission

he moved on.

He moved on.

Well, I hope you have a sense of what God has for you to do and how

he has called you and equipped you and I trust that that understanding helps you

and it helps keep your life focused and directed.

And if you don't have that, don't have that sense, then you know pray and ask the Lord to give

you a good sense of of call, of calling, what you're here for

and what he would have you to do.

So.

May the Lord bless you in that in that pursuit.

So our Father and our God we thank you for this clear and insightful

example of the Lord Jesus who because of his very clear

understanding of his purpose and his mission he was able to turn down

requests and to make decisions that would be in keeping with that mission rather

than following the wind as it blows that would take him off course

and take him off mission.

Help us to have that same sense of purpose we pray and we ask it in Jesus name.

Amen.

All right.

Well, I hope you have a good rest of your Thursday and I trust the Lord will bless you in it.

Good day.