Mauldin First Baptist Church Mauldin First Baptist

Even the most obedient disciples can struggle to answer common questions concerning our faith. “Where did the dinosaurs come from?” “How come there is so much evil in the world?” “How can you prove the Bible is the Word of God?” While there are many great proofs for our faith… it’s still a “faith”, a belief… it’s more than a set of facts. In fact, it really comes down to the person of Jesus. What do you do with Jesus? What is your decision about who He is?

We come to a time in the Gospel of Luke where Jesus no longer expects His disciples to just follow… they are now being called to DO the things they’ve seen Jesus do. And He gives them the power to do it! God still expects His disciples today to do the same things… yes, to go out and preach the word… but to also practice what we preach and demonstrate the gospel with our deeds.

We often think that when it comes to God, WE have to be the ones to find Him. But today’s story shows that while we may be looking for God, He’s come to look for us too! And He wants to be found. And He wants to give to those who ask Him for help.

If we believe God created everything and everyone, just by speaking, then is it reasonable to believe that God has ALL THE POWER THERE IS? If so, then we could also assume He doesn’t need our help. But we see in the scriptures when Jesus healed people, He didn’t just speak and heal everyone. He healed individuals. Because those individuals then went to tell others what God had done for them.

“He Is Risen!” “He is Risen Indeed!” This is a traditional Christian greeting goes back well over a thousand years, even quite possibly among the first generations of Christ followers. Today, we continue to proclaim this because this is THE foundation of our faith.

We all know that God loves everyone. But we can often find ourselves trying to add exceptions to God’s love, things like we’ve been seeing in the Gospel of Luke like “Yes, but not those with leprosy… not the tax collectors… not on the Sabbath… not those who hate us…” This week, we see a “sinful woman”, and how a religious man sees her and how God sees her.