They tried to keep him from leaving

September 21, 2010

Luke 4:42, 43 "At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent."

There is a lot of good stuff in Luke 4. The temptation of Jesus is a Gold mine that could be studied for years. In fact, there are parts of it that hit me in an extremely personal way this morning that I will be praying about. But I am not going to write about that. What hit me this morning was the end of the chapter, a couple of verses that I have never paid much attention to. A couple of verses that remind me of most of the Christians I know, if we were being honest.

The story goes that Jesus went out to pray in a solitary place. And the people, like usual, went looking for him. This scenario is repeated throughout much of the Gospels. Jesus goes to pray, people want something from him, so they track him down. But here is the part of the verse that I normally skip over; "They tried to keep him from leaving them." They wanted to keep Jesus for themselves. They had just gone through all the work to find him, now they wanted to keep him there. I doubt that they consciously wanted to be selfish and keep him all to themselves. I think rather that they were so focused on their own needs and desires, they just weren't thinking about the fact that others might need Jesus too.

How often do we do this in our lives? I think we do it more than we realize. If not in our minds, then definitely in our thoughts and actions. We searched for Jesus and found him. We know where he is, he is in the church down the street that we attend. Maybe he is in our small group bible study. And we go to visit him on a regular schedule. Maybe he is in our home and we visit with him every morning. But here is the question; do we ever take him with us to all the places we go, or do we leave him where we found him and beg him not to leave. "I'm going to need you tomorrow morning again Jesus, please just stay here." Again, we may not do this consciously - but when is the last time you took Jesus to work, or to the bank, or to the playground with your kids. When is the last time you invited someone to come to where Jesus is, or introduced them to Jesus? When is the last time you went up to someone with a problem and told them "I know the answer, you've got to meet Jesus."?

Jesus told the people "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent." And now, that responsibility falls on us. How are we doing? Are we telling people the good news, or are we satisfied that we know the good news, and that's good enough for us. Our hearts may be thinking one thing, but what our are actions saying? I am reminded of growing up. I had a crush on the neighbor girl for years, but I never told her. I "loved" her from afar, but it never affected her life. Love is action, and by not taking any action, she never knew she was loved. That's how it is with our faith. We can truly think we love someone, or we can know that Jesus loves them, but if we don't tell them - if we don't put feet to our faith, they will never know, and our love will be useless. Love that doesn't do, isn't love. Love is action. Jesus is for us, and for everyone else. We must not, I must not, keep him to myself any longer.

Father God, please help me to introduce your Son to those around me. Forgive me for trying to keep Him to myself. I love you Jesus.

Amen