Meditations on Luke 4:17-21

17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
18  "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19  to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
20  And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 

21 And he began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

 If you are familiar with this portion of scripture, you know that following this statement and a few more, Jesus was almost thrown off a cliff by an enraged synagoge crowd because of what he was saying. Those words were offensive and blasphemous to their ears. Only the messiah king or very powerful warrior prophet was supposed to come with great power and do these things and save the Jews from oppression! Not.........him! A lowly poor dirty carpenter who associated with sinful people and was followed by a band of nobodies!

Many many times I have read this passage and thought: "Go Jesus! Yeah! Tell them that you are the lamb of God who came to save us! You are just and good and loving! You are powerful beyond measure! It doesn't matter what you look like!

Today right after that, I read this: I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father (John 14:12). 

And I gasped! Because it struck me: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me! I am to do all those things....even greater things than these because I have faith in Him! 

I marvel to this day when I read the accounts of Jesus and what He has done and can't help but think sometimes that it takes a sinless man to have the  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control needed to do those things. 

God has given us his Spirit that we may do those things, greater things and be a witnesses to our falling world that He can redeem the lowliest of us all and use him/her for His greater purpose!

I gotta be honest, reading this on the first day of studying the purpose driven life with my small group gave me such an incredible perspective on what God wants to use me to do. I can tell you this...I walked out the door today with a little more spring in my step and I am standing a little taller today because of the excitement in my heart. I have a purpose and God wants to use me to do even greater things than Christ did. It's scary beyond measure but what an exciting adventure this is going to be! I am not thinking that I will be duplicating Christ's miracles on the day to day( although that would be so cool and crazy!!!!) and I am likely to fail in a lot of my endeavors but knowing that He gives new mercies everyday, unending grace and forgiveness, I can try again and keep trying until I am completely conformed to Christ. And isn't that what christian life is all about?