I thank You, Father, for the opportunity to speak in public settings beyond worship. Weddings, funerals, every occasion gives You the opportunity to use me to touch lives that may never darken the door of a church. May I be faithful and obedient in my charge. Amen.
Luke 4:16-22 (<<click to read the passage)
Recently I read a BBC article on the phenomenal odds against winning the lottery. There was a fair amount of information put out there but here is the paragraph I wanted to share.
“If you were told that you have a one in fourteen million chance of getting cancer in the next seven days people will say ‘oh well it is obviously not going to happen to me it is so infinitesimal’ but the fact that there is a one in fourteen million chance of winning the lottery people think ‘yes, it’s got to be someone why can’t it be me'”
No matter how great the odds, people believe it can happen to them!
Reading through today’s passage from Luke’s Gospel made me think of phenomenal odds. Advent and Lent always have that effect on me because each of them deals with incidences where Jesus fulfilled so many prophecies as He fleshed out (literally!) the role of the Messiah.
I read another article that stated that the Old Testament – its writing being completed 400+ years before Jesus’ birth – contains over 300 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled through His life, death, and resurrection.
Mathematically speaking, the odds of anyone fulfilling this amount of prophecy are staggering. Mathematicians put it this way:
1 person fulfilling 8 prophecies: 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 (that is 100 quadrillion!)
1 person fulfilling 48 prophecies: 1 chance in 10 to the 157th power (10157)
1 person fulfilling 300+ prophecies: Only Jesus!
It is just about impossible to even wrap your head around those kinds of numbers!
But in today’s passage as Jesus stood up to read the Scriptures in the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth, He providentially (not a coincidence but God’s hand at work!) was handed a scroll from the writings of the prophet Isaiah. He then proceeded to read what we would now recognize as Isaiah 61:1-2.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,
that the blind will see,
that the oppressed will be set free,
and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”
And without further ado, He proclaimed to them,
“The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”
And that is just one of over 300 prophecies that He would fulfill – amazing! Really it is just AWESOME! (and any of my faithful readers know, I do not use that word for anything but God Himself!!!)
Lord Jesus, this world is just crazy – the hatred, the strife, the violence it is overwhelming but You have overcome the world!
I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace. In the world you have tribulation and distress and suffering, but be courageous [be confident, be undaunted, be filled with joy]; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 (AMP)
Dec 15th, 2019, Sun, 7:09 pm
