Daily Devotion, August 23, 2023

 

Devotion:

Read Luke 6:17-26.

Our devotionals this week are focusing on God siding with the poor and those who have been treated unfairly. Many years ago, when I first heard someone say that, I didn’t agree with them. But the more I study the scriptures and learn about Jesus, I have begun to understand and agree God sides with the poor and those who have been treated unfairly. As Christ’s followers, we are called to do the same.

This is Luke’s version of the scriptures which we call “The Beatitudes” in Matthew’s gospel. Dr. R. Alan Culpepper, in The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, writes, “Luke’s beatitudes differ from Matthew’s in that Luke’s speak in the second person rather than the third person, they speak to real socioeconomic conditions rather than to spiritual conditions or attitudes, and they declare God’s commitment to the poor and the oppressed.” For example, Luke’s version begins with “Blessed are you who are poor (not in spirit, just ‘poor’).”

In our Hamilton County an estimated 44,949 of 358,746 people live in poverty. An estimated 44,212 individuals under age 65 live without health insurance.  If this is our situation, we can hear Jesus’ words of promise and hope. “You who are poor, yours is the kingdom of God…. you who are hungry you will be satisfied,....who you are weeping, you will laugh.” 

The fourth blessing to the disciples then and now is that rejection is the way the prophets were treated, and great will be their reward in heaven.

The four woes are the inverse of the blessings. Subtracting the numbers above estimates that 313,797 individuals live above the poverty threshold. If this is our situation, these scriptures are a call to re-examine our lives, priorities and time to seek God’s guidance for how we can share what we have with others who might have less.

Personal Worship Option:

In Ronald J. Sider's book, “Rich Christians In An Age of Hunger:”, he writes that Jesus identifies with the poor as he quotes, Matthew 25:40, “In as much as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it unto me.” How do you regularly put Jesus’ love in action “to one of the least of these”?