Insightful Musings on the New Testament
by
Ray Sparre, NU class of '67

Ray has a wealth of experience as a Husband, Father, Pastor, Missionary, and student of the Word. He believes and practices his faith where the rubber meets the road. You'll find his writings to be practical, insightful, and grounded in a truly Christ-centered world view.

Below are links to a printable daily Bible reading guide which Ray is following, and an archive of all his daily devotional writings for 2010.

|  Daily Reading Guide  |  2010 Devotion Archives  |
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 1 June 10
    Good evening, dear ones.
    I can hardly believe it's June already...and I can hardly believe it's nearly 10pm already...and I can hardly believe my head is still a bit functional--normally it's not at this hour.  But it's going down fast...so I better wrap it up quick.
    Keep trusting in the Lord with at least 10% of your heart...NOT!...with ALL your heart!  That's the only recipe for making things come out right.
    Have a good night.  I guess we'll be bedding down with the sound of rain on the roof again.  Lots of rain lately.  Blessings.
        Love, Dad/Ray
 
1 June 2010
Passage: Luke 9:37-62
Focus: “O unbelieving and perverse generation.”  Luke 9:41.
            People who follow Jesus sure can have a lot of hang-ups.  And that is exactly why they need to be following Jesus.  Let’s list the hang-ups as they appear in this brief reading.  I suppose there is some indirect encouragement to be found in such a list—it helps us understand that we are not so unique as we might think with our own set of hang-ups.
            UNBELIEF (v. 41).  We don’t know all the details, but Jesus stated that the cause for the disciples not being able to deliver the boy of a demon was unbelief.
            REJECTION OF SUFFERING.  Here is another call for HEARING EARS.  Jesus said to His disciples, “Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you; The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men” (v. 44).  The idea of a suffering Messiah was so far removed from their ideology that Jesus’ words went right over their heads.
            PRIDE AND POWER.  The disciples must have sensed that things were coming to a head—that Jesus would soon be assuming His official Messianic role.  So they got into a little scrap over who was going to be His right-hand man when that takes place.  It says, “An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest” (v. 46).
            EXCLUSIVISM.  His followers really thought they were an exclusive group of “teacher’s pets.”  Verse 49 goes, “’Master,’ said John, ‘we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.”  Jesus messes up that idea by saying, “Do not stop him…for whoever is not against you is for you” (v. 50).
REVENGE.  A Samaritan town did not welcome Jesus so James and John got pretty ticked and said, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them” (v. 54).

            They were a great outfit!  But rather than spend a lot of time criticizing these under-developed disciples in training, let’s note that Jesus did, in fact, call them, flawed as they were.  Praise God!  Do you realize what that means?—maybe there’s hope for you and me!
 
            “Some people are very consistent—they remain immature all their lives.”