Months ago I had typed this out and promptly forgot to post it. J  That’s me for sure lol.  Our pastor preached on this chapter Resurrection Sunday and it reminded me I still had this and then 2 of my sweet sisters mentioned my sporadic blogging and reminded me again tonight.  All this has reminded me that I’m grateful for God showing me His love over and over during every day because obviously, I’m a “forgetter”.  Praying that anyone that reads this is encouraged.  Happy resurrection of our Savior every day!

On the Road to Emmaus

Luke 24:13-35

A couple sisters and I have been getting together diligently working through a discipleship book called Multiply by Francis Chan & David Platt.  It is an absolutely amazing tool to use with new and mature Christians.  God has used it greatly in our time together of fellowship to guide us in learning to study God’s word and God’s word has been ever so faithful to reveal parts of our hearts to us that we didn’t know were there or were too scared to see. 

My affections are so often set only on my own desires and dreams for right now.  I start to live as if there is no goal past the present and I do it knowing full well that “That Day” is coming.  The day I will stand before my Father facing eternity and give account of what I have and haven’t done with the knowledge, time, purpose, and people He has given me.  I start to live as if my days are my own knowing full well that my Jesus paid the highest price for the days I waste in laziness or with a bad attitude.

This week as I read and prepared for getting together with the girls (I ended up staying home having a sick day) I was reading Luke 24 and the verses 13-35 gripped my heart like never before.  I found myself completely identifying with Cleopas and his companion as they met Jesus. 

Here they were walking with the Son of God and they didn’t know it.  How often I live my day as if Jesus isn’t right there with me?  They were conversing with Him about Him and they didn’t know it.  How often do I read the word and fail to see Him in it, to know Him better?  They were questioning everything Jesus went through because it wasn’t what they expected.  Jesus was so compassionate of them that He walked them all through the scriptures from Moses on all the way through the prophets to show them that everything that happened was ordained by God and necessary for God’s glory and their good in verses 25-27.  Can you imagine!?  God resurrected, in flesh, walking you through the scriptures about the beginning of time, man’s corruption, God’s covenant, His birth, death and resurrection and the hope that comes from it!?

It was after they were reminded of the scriptures in their entirety (the Old Testament and the New Testament make ONE story of God’s redemption) that they sat down to eat with Jesus, to share in an everyday need that God opened their eyes to see Him and KNOW Him, verse 31.  Though He vanished from their sight, verse 32 made my heart jump and rejoice, “They said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us on the road, while He opened to us the scriptures?’” 

I struggle so much with getting up to pray.  Reading God’s word is a task that is much easier to accomplish, I can check it off my list and carry on with my day and even feel good about having done it.  Our time in working through this book has helped to see how bad this attitude toward God’s word is.  Here I have God’s living breath before me and I would treat it as if it was any old book that I could pick up or put down at my leisure.  Picking up it with the reverence its worthy of, remembering what it is has helped me to begin to learn to truly love it, to seek the treasure of God’s heart in it and to see His complete faithfulness throughout it all.  It is teaching me to converse with my Father in the quiet in the morning and all throughout my day (Luke 24:45).  It’s growing my faith!  When I stumble, when I fall (all day long), I know He is with me!  Its so beautiful what God’s word does and it leaves me humbled as I walk on this road with Him. 

Reading the scriptures, seeing Him and then seeking Him in prayer, simple & honest prayer, God is faithful to open our eyes.  In scripture we learn more and in prayer, in fellowship with Him through the day, at waking, at play, at chores, at everything God opens our eyes to KNOW Him, to be in relationship with Him that is real. 

Let me encourage you to be faithful in this, to read His word, to pray, and to seek fellowship in enjoying and discussing His word accurately with other sisters in Christ.  Be faithful to meet to be discipled and also to disciple others.  This is the work we are called to do, we can only do it well as we seek to KNOW Him and we know Him through His living word.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:19-20 ESV