Daily Devotional for Sunday, March 8

Perception and Reconciliation

“Ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time?” Luke 12: 56.

When I was (very) pregnant with our oldest, Chase and I did a skit in Sunday worship. I was clearly pregnant, but the skit was about missing the obvious. I mentioned morning nausea, craving potatoes, a foggy brain, and needing to borrow bigger clothes. What could it be?

In Luke 12:54-59, Jesus pointed out signs people used to read the weather. I’m sure the people nodded, knowing exactly what each sign meant. A cloud formed over the Mediterranean Sea in the west and it brought rain. Winds that blew across the southern Negev desert could raise temperatures by thirty degrees in one hour!

When we were in Papua, we marveled at how in-tune the people were to the weather. There is no Weather Channel in the jungle! They read the skies and knew. One sunny afternoon, our language helpers left early so they could fish before the rain. The rain? It was sunny! Sure enough, in two hours, it was raining hard. They knew it.

The sign-seeking crowd (Luke 11:16) could read signs, but they were missing the obvious. They were witnessing signs from Heaven, yet, they could not identify them. Jesus called them hypocrites or pretenders.

They pretended to be authorities on the movements of God, yet, they missed the signs God gave them. They disagreed with those signs, so they requested others. How did Jesus answer John’s disciples when they asked if Jesus was “he that should come” (Matthew 11:3; Luke 7:19)? “The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them” (Matthew 11:5). Should they look for another?

THOUGHT

“No doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you” (Luke 11:20).

Kelli Reynolds