She Loved Much
"She loved much." Luke 8:47 (NIV)
Bruce, James Bruce and I just returned from five days at the beach. In order to make the trip, Bruce and I packed our bags last Wednesday, traveled on Thursday and unpacked them once we arrived. This morning we pulled out the suitcases and repacked all of the items we needed to take home.
In much the same way, my women's weekly Bible study has done the same thing over the last ten weeks. We first did an overview of the Gospel of Luke before unpacking its 24 chapters as we traveled verse by verse through the book. Last Thursday morning before my family left for Gulf Shores, the young moms in our Luke study shared their top Luke Takeaways from our ten-week study. As they shared each new insight, encouragement, or "gold nugget" we storyboarded all of the takeaways. As we did, we repacked our highlights from our time together. Hopefully each participant will be able to put the truths they've learned to good use in their lives, families, homes, and ministries. My goal each time I teach a Bible study is to encourage and equip women to develop and strengthen their relationships with God, their families, and each other. As I listened to their top Luke takeaways, I was the one who was encouraged and equipped. I pray that by sharing their top takeaways, you too will be encouraged to read and study the book of Luke for yourself:
Jesus, Savior of the world to the least, the last, & the lost - (Key verse Luke 19:10) - least, last, lost
The Gospel is the good news of salvation. (Tim Keller says the Gospel isn't good advice; it's good news!)
The Kingdom of God is the redemptive reign & rule of God in the person & work of Jesus Christ. (The Kingdom of God is Luke's secondary theme of his first book)
The Kingdom of God is the upside down kingdom; the "already, not yet", fulfilled but not consummated; kingdom of grace here, and glory hereafter
Kingdom = Rule; Church= people
The message of the Kingdom is repent!
Listen to reproduce, not just to receive (Parable of the Soils)
Jesus’ Authority over the 5 Ds- Demons, Disease, Death, Defilement, & Danger; He is who He says He is.
Parables & the power of story - the first key to understanding Jesus' parable is to ask, "Who is his audience?"
Eyewitnesses and the testimony of a changed life - Luke begins & ends his book with an emphasis on eyewitnesses
Jesus' pattern and priority of personal & private prayer
We can choose faith or we can choose fear, but we can’t choose them both at the same time.
The goal of repentance is always restoration, vertical to God & horizontal to man
How do we know that we’ve truly repented? We change!
The Cycle of temptation & sin- I see it, I want it, I take it, I spread the consequences
How to have a responsive heart:
Be desperate for God
Be dependent on God
Be delivered by God
Be delighted in God
Our main problem is never our Suffering; it is ALWAYS our sin.
There are always three responses to Jesus' teaching– The crowds were amazed; the religious leaders were angered; and a few people were completely altered. The same is true today. There is no neutrality to the Gospel.
Christian discipleship - rooted & fruited; faithfulness & fruitfulness required; Fellowship of the Crucified (Bonhoeffer)
"She loved much" Luke 8:47 (NIV)
In context, the "she loved much" was Jesus' assessment of the sinful woman who, once forgiven of her sins, washed Jesus feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, and anointed them with perfume. Jesus rightly concluded that because her many sins had been forgiven, the woman loved much. I bet I'd read that passage at least twenty times, but somehow in teaching it one week, those words jumped off the page and into my heart. We decided that those three words- "she loved much"-would be a wonderful life verse or tombstone epitaph. How many of us would not long for that to be how people remember us? And what does a "she loved much" life look like, not just to Jesus, but to a world that so desperately needs it?
"She loved much"- just one of the many lessons of Luke!