And The Power of The Lord Was Present…

And The Power of The Lord Was Present…

Teachers, Pastors, Pharisee’s and, especially, the multitudes (the crowd also called society) can keep us from Jesus Christ. Of course they don’t intend to do that, but it sure winds up happening more often than not. The crowds (multitudes, society) will block people from Christ quicker than anything. The reason this can be said with such confidence is so many of us get our identity from society, from the multitudes. We see, or hear, how someone else is creating success in their life and we believe we can do the same, and we usually believe we can do it better or slightly different in order to grow our success. So we simply mimic someone else, thereby, taking on their identity instead of our own, unique identity.

The problem is, it is a false identity. It is not our true Christ identity that Jesus Christ intends for us to live and be successful. To be clear, we are not discussing financial success, we are discussing a successful life, which means Jesus Christ, family and community. Yes, monetary stability is necessary, however, that is not what we are discussing at all. Jesus only spoke of monetary success in ways that make most people very, very uncomfortable. They would rather not discuss financial wealth as they are not willing to give up theirs in order to follow Jesus Christ fully. Their identity is found in society (the crowds, multitudes) instead of Christ.

What’s interesting is a passage in Luke 5. This chapter is rich with parables and lessons from the Master Himself. Jesus was very active at this time, healing, teaching and casting out demons and the like. All this was a demonstration of His Father’s Power radiating through Him. Jesus, the Son of God, was doing as His Father had ask, in order to get people’s attention and to show them His identity which had come from His Father, our God.

We all accept that Jesus Christ walked in His identity, is that a fair statement? If so, then why would Luke make the following proclamation…

Now it happened on a certain day, as He was teaching, that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was present to heal them. ~ Luke 5:17 NKJB (emphasis added)

Why does Luke feel the need to announce the “the power of the Lord was present to heal them”? Wasn’t the Lord present wherever Jesus traveled, wherever He stood? What happened, what was special about this particular situation?

The mix of people wasn’t particularly unusual. The setting wasn’t unusual nor the act of healing that was performed by Jesus, Emmanuel. So, why would Luke make such an announcement? Nothing is happenstance in the Bible. There is a lesson at every turn, with each Word, the breath of God, is teaching us something, and this particular passage is screaming. Just not sure what it’s saying nor the reason for it.

Either the Scripture is the divine Word of God teaching us how to live and how to be a reflection of God, or it’s nothing more than a historical account of events.