God Has A Bad Reputation

The Pharisees are impossible with all of their rules.

Luke 13:10-16 One Sabbath day as Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, 11 he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight.

12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness!” 13 Then he touched her, and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised God!

14 But the leader in charge of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus had healed her on the Sabbath day. “There are six days of the week for working,” he said to the crowd. “Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath.”

15 But the Lord replied, “You hypocrites! Each of you works on the Sabbath day! Don’t you untie your ox or your donkey from its stall on the Sabbath and lead it out for water? 16 This dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage by Satan for eighteen years. Isn’t it right that she be released, even on the Sabbath?”

---

Jesus was teaching in the synagogue when he noticed that a woman in the congregation had a physical deformity and he had compassion on her. A demon had afflicted a woman for 18 years and suddenly the demon was homeless, Jesus kicked him out with just one touch.

Jesus had cast out the demon and straightened her spine with one simple touch and the woman was praising God, but not everybody was happy about it. What about the man in charge of the synagogue, well he told her that she should have waited for her healing to come on the right day.

Every Jew had the compassion to take their farm animals to water instead of making them go an entire day without and yet they criticized Jesus for reaching out his hand and touching a woman with an earnest need. The sabbath rules were never meant to be of more importance that helping your neighbor.

How did they come to the point where they forgot that God is love? When did we get to the point that we decided that God is rules?

Psalm 86:15 But you, O Lord, are a God of compassion and mercy, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.

God wants obedience and a willing heart to do what is right. Yes he is a God of judgement and he will punish those that do not accept the gift of salvation but ultimately God is love, he shows his love to his children and to those that do not believe yet. God loves us enough that he sent his son to die for our sins while we were still his enemy.

Thank you Lord for building a bridge so that I can have a relationship with you.