Luke 13:10-17: A place of healing?(please click here)

This story contains a number of challenges. Here are three:

1. Am I more concerned about religious rules and propriety than I am about people and their needs? There are hard- hearted folk in the professing church who, it seems to me, care more about legalistic correctness than their fellow-human beings. Today I recognise the danger and want to flag up a warning. I do not want to be like that.We ought not to be that way.

2. Do I think for one minute that I can dictate to God as to where, when and how He can work (14)? Do I want to try to cramp and confine the infinite Lord of the universe into my narrow framework? God is the ‘God of surprises’ and just when I think I have Him ‘taped’ I will discover no one can tie Him down to their own narrow understanding. Did you hear the story about the schoolboy who, when his teacher told him God was everywhere and so was most certainly in his inkwell, slapped his hand over the top of the well and exclaimed, ‘Got Him’!? We can (foolishly) be like that. But the wind blows wherever it wills. You can’t catch or control it.

3. Is my church a place of healing? Is it really Jesus’ church? Does He have freedom of movement? Does He reign there?  Do we try to tie Him up with the ropes of religious rules and regulations? Is it a place where the needy find welcome and compassion? Is it somewhere the bound are set free? Is it an environment, an atmosphere filled with miraculous power?

Jesus came into the world to release those bound by Satan, and that includes you. Will you come to Him today?