Burdens

I ran across this scripture out of the book of Luke this morning. 

Jesus replied, "And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them. (Luke 11:46).

In Luke Chapter 11, Jesus is rebuking the "lawyers" or experts of the law, pretty harshly because they are what I call "hyper-spiritual".  They have claimed things their fathers did as their own, and are being chastised for being clean on the outside, but not on the inside.  My pastor calls these type of folks "make-believers".  They DO all the right things, but bear no fruit of a relationship with God (Jesus) - my own translation of my pastor's definition.

And in response to them telling Jesus that when He is rebuking them he is offending them, Jesus says, in this verse, that they are literaly loading burdens on people that they cannot carry and yet, they don't lift a finger to help them.

It left me with the impression that they wanted to point their fingers and say all the critical ways people were not like them, and exalt themselves and their great heritage, and yet, after putting down the people, and criticising them and pointing out all the ways in which they are broken or fail, they did nothing to assist them.

At the end of the Chapter, in verse 54, it says that these "pharasees" plotted to catch Jesus in something He might say - to catch Him in doing or saying something incorrect or not accurate, because they became hostile.

Now of course, Jesus was and is God, and was and is perfect, and therefore, I doubt they ever "caught" Him in error.  We have multiple records of where they tried to catch Him, to find fault, but they never did - He was and is the perfect will of God.

But, I wonder, as people, and as followers of Christ, do we do that to others?  Do we come along side them and in well-meaning ways point out the "speck" in our brother or sister's eye, or expose their weakness and faults (their very brokeness that often times they have allowed us to see in trust and vulnerability) and then plot to point out all the ways they fall short?

Recently, I have seen some of that in my own life show up on both the receiving and giving end for me and so, am guilty of doing this myself and having it done to me.

As I look in the mirror more and more clearly (1 Corinthians 13) I wonder, how many people in my own life, have I put aside or shut out because they were broken and, was so quick to point out their shortcomings and weaknesses in my attempt to "fix them" or "help them."  Of course, my outward conscious motivation was to help, but in the end, in clarity, anyone who is in Christ is a new creation, amen? 

We are called to love our neighbor as ourself.....

Today, on the eve of Thanksgiving, I am truly thankful that in Christ I myself am a new creation.  I am thankful that His mercy is new every morning and so is mine because He is in me.  I am thankful that He calls things which are NOT (currently) as if they (already) ARE and that I rely upon that in faith.

I am thankful that He who started this work in me is FAITHFUL to complete it to His glory. 

And, I am thankful in my own brokeness and limitations and I am happy that "for just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows."

I pray Father and thank you, in Jesus's name, that I am NOT a pharasee, weighing down others with burdens and not lifting a finger to help ease them.  I thank YOU that I have eyes to see Your children and my brothers and sisters with the eyes You have and hear with the ears You have, for them, Amen.

"...And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13).

"I am giving you a new commandment to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another."  (John 13:34).