- Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. Luke 17:32-33 – Jesus takes His listeners back to a story in the beginning of scripture. Lot and his family were living in the land of Sodom and Gomorrah, vile cities so filled with sin that the Lord destroyed them with fire. Yet the Lord gave Lot and his family a chance of rescue, they were able to run away from the city before it was destroyed. If though you are familiar with this story, you know it didn’t end well for Lot’s wife. Likely because she still longed for the sin of the city she was running from, she turned back to look at the city while fleeing from it, and she lost her life because of that turning back. She wanted to keep her old life with her sinful companions and sinful habits, yet such a pursuit only left her losing it all. What we need to take away from Jesus’ words and this Old Testament passage is that we can’t pursue both a life after God and a life after sin. If we want our sin, then eternal life is not in our future. Yet if we lose and end our life with sin, there we discover true life in Jesus. Remember Lot’s wife if you are tempted to remain in your choice of pursuing things of this world instead of Jesus. Certainly the things of the world are enjoyable and can fulfill us for a short while, but the end result for us when we remain gazing at these things is a losing a chance at eternal life. Instead choose to fix your gaze on Jesus, leaving this world behind you, and find yourself walking in new life because of such a choice. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 3546
- And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come!” Luke 17:1 – This passage is comforting and scary all at the same time. Comforting because Jesus says to expect temptations. That if you were worried you were doing something wrong because there are temptations around you can stop worrying because temptations are going to come. Scary because of the seriousness Jesus has about us being the tempter in someone’s life. Be sure that you are constantly checking yourself that you aren’t causing someone to stumble. We should care that we don’t cause our church family to fall into things like bitterness, lust, or envy. Be aware of what you say and how you act. You can either be a part of someone overcoming sin in their life or the one introducing it to their life. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 622
- Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? Luke 17:9 – Jesus speaks of a servant who does the tasks given to him by his master, then that evening comes into the house after a long day of work. Jesus purposes a question, does the master invite him to the table and thank him for the hard work that he had done? The answer to His question would have been no because Jesus was proving a point. The servant was doing what was told to him to be done by his master. No special thanks or acknowledgment was expected by the servant because he was serving as commanded to serve. How we should apply this to our story is our posture for serving shouldn’t be one to receive something from the Lord. Whether than might be an answer to our prayers, and acknowledgement from Him, or even forgiveness of a sin, our following the commands given to us by God shouldn’t be followed to receive something in return. We follow because we’ve been commanded by our Lord to follow. We could follow the commands of the Lord for the rest of our eternity and never receive anything else from the Lord, and God would still be worthy of our following. Thankfully we have a God who does bless and does provide and does invite us to His table. Let’s just not think it’s a result of our serving that has earned us any of that. We serve because God has been good to us and saved us. We can count of future goodness from God being shown to us, but it’s going to come out of His love for us, not out of an obligation to repay us for our faithfulness to Him. Let’s serve then from a position of gratitude, not expectation for reward. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 2334
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