“Make every effort to enter through the narrow door because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.” —Luke 13:24

What does a prophet do? A prophet tells us what we don’t want to hear, but need to hear. A prophet communicates the brutally honest truth about us. Before attending Pastor Jason’s sessions on Luke last fall, I didn’t think of Jesus as a prophet. In my mind, Jesus wasn’t anything like those Old Testament, judgmental types. After all, he didn’t come into the world to judge it but to save it, right? I took that to mean his teachings essentially replaced all of those fire and brimstone laws and rules: the “thou shall” and the “thou shall not”! With this line of thinking, no matter what I did or how I acted, everything would be fine because Jesus forgives and I benefit from his love and grace.

While all of this is true, those fall sessions helped me gain a better understanding of what Jesus expects of me. What I found in Luke, particularly in chapters 11 through 13, is that Jesus has pretty high standards for us to meet as believers. He uses dark parables and makes very challenging statements about us needing to have a strong, active faith. The message I got was that my faith shouldn’t be like cramming for a test at the last minute when I should have been studying weeks ahead of time or knowingly jumping into quicksand and then screaming my head off for help.

To sum it up, I think that Jesus doesn’t replace the law but adds love and grace to those laws. It adds a whole new meaning to Jesus’ declaration that he did not come to abolish those Old Testament Laws but to fulfill or complete them.

Dear Lord, you sent your son to save me, but you also sent him to hold a mirror up in front of me and tell me those things that I want to ignore. Help me to take all of your teachings to heart, not only the gift of eternal life that you gave me, but also the expectations you have of me and the way you want me to live my life here on earth. Amen.

Curt Hohman