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Topic: Don’t Look For Faults
[DCLM Daily Manna 5 August 2020 Devotional by Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi]
Text: Luke 14:1-11 (KJV)
1 And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him.
2 And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy.
3 And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?
4 And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go;
5 And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?
6 And they could not answer him again to these things.
7 And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them,
8 When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him;
9 And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room.
10 But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.
11 For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted..
Key Verse: “And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him.” – (Luke 14:1)
MESSAGE:
It was said that when the British and the French were fighting in Canada in the 1750s, Admiral Phillips, commander of the British fleet, was given orders to wait for the British land forces to arrive and then support them when they attacked the city of Quebec. But as the Admiral waited, he grew annoyed by the statues of the saints that adorned a nearby cathedral. So he commanded his men to shoot at them with the ship’s canons. When the land forces eventually arrived and the signal was given to attack, the Admiral was of no help because he had used up all his canons shooting at the “saints.”
Religious leaders in Christ’s day spent most of their time criticising Him without making any meaningful impact in their own service. The Pharisees and Sadducees became an inglorious army of fault finders, looking for loopholes or any violations that they can use against Christ. In the passage under review, the Pharisees would not identify with the plight of the sick man but instead focused on the assumed violation of the laws by healing the man on the Sabbath day.
Fault-finders are very prominent in every church today. They criticise everything that is done for no good reason. Their concern is not about the salvation of souls but whether there is any violation of their self-made rules which are not Bible-based. They advance their wickedness, covetousness and pride by hiding under certain Scripture which they twist to serve their own ulterior purposes.
We should not allow the envious and judgmental Pharisees in the church to drown our zeal. Where possible, the Scriptures should be explained to these religious bigots, highlighting the basis behind our deeds; but where they choose not to listen, we must continue to go higher for Christ.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Fault-finders can never be pathfinders.
THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: Nehemiah 5-7
