Luke 1

How has the start of the New Year been for you?  Every start of the new year carries with it new resolutions, promises and hopes.  And more often than not, many of these dreams die or disappear because we simply never got started.

We are starting on a brand new Bible reading plan this year.  Let us help one another, encourage one another and read with one another – the only book worth reading because in it, we find the words of eternal life.

May God bless our spiritual journey together…

Bible Passage:  Luke 1

Preacher Simon Chin gave a very comprehensive introduction to Luke Chapter 1 in last Tuesday’s Bible Study Service.  For those of you who missed it, the notes are found in the previous blog posting.  Therefore, I would not want to focus on the story but instead on the author of the Gospel – Luke.

Can We Be Like Mr. Luke?

If we were to read Luke 1:1-4, we are told 4 things about his work:

1.  He had “investigated” the story.  This means he had put in time and effort to dig out the facts, interviewed eye witnesses, sort out the facts from friction, examined every claim to see if they are true or false… you know… do practically everything that every good CSI agent would do – just to make sure that his records would stand any cross examination.

2.  He had gone back “from the beginning”, starting with John the Baptist.

3.  He had been very thorough, having studied “all things” (much of what Luke’s material is not found in the other 3 Gospels).  This showed that he did not just accept at face value what others said and intead wanted to be very sure of everything himself before writing things down.

4.  In the NIV version, it says that Luke worked “carefully” to tell the story clearly.  In calling his account “orderly”, Luke meant that he had tried to relate the story logically.  And as you read through the Gospel according to Luke, you will notice that some arrangements of his material is by topics or themes (events are not necessarily in chronological order).

Whew!  It sure sounds like a lot of work.  But it is because of the faithfulness of Luke that we have this Gospel to read today, so that we can learn more about this Messiah of ours – our Lord Jesus.

What have I learned today?

I learn that I must resolve to do something for the Lord this year.

Luke resolved to prepared an accurate and orderly account of the life of Jesus so that Theophilos could read it and understand who Jesus was.  We also know that Luke wrote Acts of the Apostles with the same motive – so that Theophilos could understand how was the Church established.

Some of us do make resolutions to do something for the Lord.  Some of us don’t while others no longer bother.

Whatever group we belong to, let us consider once again how we can serve the Lord together.

Bro Vincent gave an excellent sermon on last Friday evening service.  He spoke about Caleb – a man with a different spirit.  Caleb was a great example of one who continued serving God even at his old age.  He did not stop in his desire to work for God just because he no longer had the vitality… he just thought of another means!

Right now… my MSN status says this… “I want to grow up to be like Caleb!”  That is my inspiration and aspiration for this year – to continue serving God in whatever areas I can until I grow old.

I learn that in order to work for God, I must make the necessary effort.

As we have read earlier, Luke put in tremendous effort to write the gospel book and Acts of the Apostles.  What he did was not trivial.

I have many dreams of doing work for God.  But I failed in many of them because I simply never got round to putting any effort to do it.

I wanted to play the piano and sing along with the children.  But after one or two lessons and less than one hour of practice, I gave up… and it still remains a dream.

I wanted to be a better interpreter by being more proficient in my Chinese.  I bought the books, I collected MyPaper (a bilingual free newspaper) – thinking that I would use it all to increase my vocabulary and hence, proficiency… it still remains a dream.

I have many more personal examples- wrong!  Let me call them personal disasters that I can share but I promised myself that this year I would not be so long winded in the Bible blog… but I guess that will also remain a dream 🙂

But my point is this…

All our hopes, desires and resolve to work for the Lord are just dreams if we do not make an effort to do anything about it.

We want to be engaged in the work of evangelism.  We must put in the hours of Bible Study, prayer, asking questions, reflecting on them, memorise them, pray some more, study some more, pray again, preach, study and pray some more….

We want to be better RE teachers.  We must put in the efforts to prepare earlier and not just the day before or hours before the lesson starts.

We want to be able to say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”.  This involves sacrificing our free time to come to church to tend to the garden, perform general maintenance or even just to wash the toilets.

We need to put our hands and legs where our mouth is.  What we say, we do. To our utmost.

This is what Luke did.  This is what Caleb did.  This is what I sincerely pray to God that I will also do this year.

Finally, I learn that I must fulfill what I resolved to do for God.

Luke set out with a mission to have a most accurate and comprehensive explanation of who Jesus is and how the Church of God started.  And he did it!

When we dare to “dream big” for the Lord, I believe He blesses and guides – as long as it is in His will.

Last year, we started off with the crazy plan to read through the Bible in one year.  Not only that, we also wanted to have a Bible Blog to accompany the members in reading through the Bible.

Yep, you heard me right.  I said “crazy plan” because frankly, it was a very challenging plan… and to have something written for the Bible Blog for 365 consecutive days!!!!!????

I never said this out aloud before but I thought that the Bible blog will die off after 3 months and less and less members will follow along the plan.

Despite our inadequacies, God leads and blesses.

The number of Bible blog readers increased week by week.  The number of members who followed the plan faithfully never faltered.   And although we did not make a survey to know how many members actually finished reading the whole Bible last year, I do know of a number.  But at the least, I know of a lot more who read more of the Bible last year than they did in the last 5 years before that!

I believe that we were able to do it because we had make the resolution to read through the Bible and we faithfully carried it out to its completion.

Just like Luke.  He knew what he wanted to do for God was good and necessary.  He made sure he finished it.

Let us consider what we want to do for God this year and make it a point to finish it.

Let it not remain just a dream.

Let not previous set backs stop us from trying again.

Let us put in the hours of work required.

Let us pray for one another and encourage one another.

Let us draw closer day by day to God.