Recognizing Jesus: Luke 19:41-44

Focus Passage: Luke 19:41-44 (GNT)

 41 He [Jesus] came closer to the city, and when he saw it, he wept over it, 42 saying,
         If you only knew today what is needed for peace! But now you cannot see it! 43 The time will come when your enemies will surround you with barricades, blockade you, and close in on you from every side. 44 They will completely destroy you and the people within your walls; not a single stone will they leave in its place, because you did not recognize the time when God came to save you!

Read Luke 19:41-44 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

While this is a short, four verse passage, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t multiple things we can pull out of it. The one BIG idea that we can focus on today is what is implied by the very last phrase of verse 44: “. . . because you did not recognize the time when God came to save you!”

This phrase jumped off the page (err screen) when I read it. With a simple “because”, Jesus hinges all the destruction of Jerusalem on their one failure to act/recognize/accept Him. Jesus is predicting Jerusalem’s destruction, which will happen a few decades from that point in history, but this phrase seems to indicate that if Jerusalem (we could probably include “Israel”) had accepted Him, God would have changed the course of history and Jerusalem would have been saved from destruction.

This big idea has real-time applications as well. We could ask ourselves the question, “Am I failing to recognize God moving in my life to save me?” Often times, we struggle with a nagging thought, a bad habit, or something else we would like to change, and while it is hard to admit, most of us do know what we need to do to remedy the situation. I might suggest that God has planted that knowledge in our mind (whether divinely or through observation/experience). By not moving towards the solution, are we delaying our spiritual growth – not to mention any physical, emotional, or relational growth that is also present?

We are holistic beings, and this means that our physical, emotional, and spiritual lives are connected. What we do in one area will affect the others. For example, if we are sick physically, it is going to be difficult to grow spiritually; or if we are locked up emotionally, it may affect our health long term.

In this passage, Jerusalem was spiritually locked and this caused them to not recognize Jesus. They were too set in their ideal image of a messiah that they missed the Messiah who came with a much bigger vision then they thought. Are we failing to recognize Jesus working in our lives to save us?

This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!

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