A devotional thought presented originally to River Street Cafe, Regent Park Toronto, Friday 24 June 2016
Read Luke 11:14-28:[1]
Last night Britain voted to leave Europe. England and Wales want to go; Scotland and N.Ireland want to stay. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, has resigned. “Any kingdom divided against itself will be
ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall...”
“...If Satan is divided
against himself, how can his kingdom stand?” (Lk 11:23, Mt 12:30) Jesus says,
“He who is not with me is against me.” Jesus has been accused of exorcising
demons by demonic power (Lk 11:15, Mt 12:24, Mk 3:22). A conviction of
witchcraft was punishable by death. Jesus answers this charge by saying that
not only is He innocent but also it is impossible to drive out evil with evil
as is charged. Only good can drive out evil. Therefore since Jesus can drive
out evil, He is good; thus if you oppose Him than you, by definition, are evil.
“He who is not with me is against me.”
Today are we with him or against him?
Jesus casts out demons while telling this story of a divided house and even a parable of an haunted house. Sin, in
this parable, has many parallels with addiction. Any of us who have ever
struggled with addiction know that each time one becomes clean and then slips
up, it becomes more difficult to become clean again and remain that way. The
metaphorical demons of addiction, like literal demons and sin, return stronger
(with more friends) each time. It doesn’t need to be that way. Jesus can clean
our houses and when Jesus cleans our house we can let Him keep it clean too
(TSA d.6, d.10)!
So what can we do? We can do nothing to
clean the house: Jesus defeated sin and death between the cross and the empty
tomb (TSA d.6) but looking at Luke 11:27, we notice a woman who calls out to
Jesus, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.” To which
Jesus reponds, as we should to the deliverance He has offered us, “blessed
rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it (Lk 11:28).” “He who is
not with me is against me”
This is the choice set before us today.
We can ask Jesus to sweep our life clean and He will. We then need to choose
who we will serve. We can serve ourselves, our own desires; we can serve the
Enemy by inviting demons to haunt our lives again or we can serve the Lord and
live life abundantly (TSA d.6 d.8). Today we must decide, are we with our Lord
or are we against him?
Please remember too that any of us can
ask our Lord Jesus to clean our haunted houses. Even if He has already cleaned
it once or one hundred times and we have messed it up again. While we still
have breath in our body, we can invite Him back into our lives to clean us up,
sort us out and we can continue receiving the Lord’s blessing of eternal life,
Luke 11:28, “blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” As
we do this, we will continue in the blessing of the Holy Spirit. This is
holiness and this holiness is available to all but we must make a choice (TSA
d.10).
Today the choice is yours: are you with Jesus or against Him?
[1] Based on the sermon by Captain Michael Ramsay, Luke 11:14-28: The Haunted House. Originally presented to Swift Current Corps 31 October
2010. http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2010/10/luke-1114-28-matthew-1225-29-parable-of.html
Posts
