Luke 14:3
I was flipping through my Bible to get to Romans earlier when I came to the page this verse was on, and I stopped. Something about the question caught my attention, so I had to postpone my study of Romans to take some notes on this verse. So I decided I'd share my findings.
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Here Jesus is testing the Pharisees, although the Pharisees had been plotting to test Him. Healing is something only God can do, so Jesus is essentially asking, "Is it lawful for God to be God on the Sabbath or not?" The Pharisees couldn't perform healings unless God willed it, but they had never tried to heal someone on the Sabbath. If it was unlawful to heal on the Sabbath, God would have made their efforts fail. If it was unlawful, Jesus would not have been able to heal the man with the withered hand. By healing his hand, Jesus answered His own question: "Yes, it is lawful, but you Pharisees make things unlawful that are actually, not only lawful, but also encouraged and expected by God." Jesus repeatedly revealed His identity as God because, if any of His claims about Himself had been false, God would not have allowed Him to perform the miracles He did. Because He claimed to be God and continued to be successful in performing miracles, He had to be telling the truth.
In this passage, Jesus is, in a way, making fun of the Pharisees because they aren't all-powerful and they aren't favored by God, even though they think they are. No mortal man can heal another apart from the hand of God. So by asking His question, not only is Jesus asking if they believe God is allowed to be Himself on the Sabbath, but He is also asking if they believe they can perform healings without God, making them equal with God.
So how does this apply to us today? Well, we often rely on our own strength, our own abilities to get things done. It seems clear from this single verse that the Pharisees were doing the same thing. But in John 15:5, Jesus says, "[Apart] from Me you can do nothing." We can't succeed in anything unless God has willed it, even if we have prepared so much that it would be nearly impossible to fail; if we try to live apart from God, outside of His will, we will fail like the Pharisees. So we have to rely fully on God for everything, because only then will we have success.
We also have to just let God be God. We get so caught up in what we're doing that we forget to ask God what He wants us to do. Isaiah 55:8 says, "'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,' declares the Lord." When things aren't going your way, remember that they're going God's way, and God's plan is perfect, so much bigger than any of our plans could ever be. Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." Since the creation of the world, God has been moving, acting on everything that has happened in order to bring us into His perfection. When I was looking up Isaiah 55:8, I read on and came upon Isaiah 55:10-12, which I really liked: "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is My word that goes out from My mouth: It will not return to Me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands." There is nothing on earth that happens that God cannot work with; His purpose will be fulfilled, and there's nothing we can do to mess it up. So that gives us all the more reason to seek God's will and act on it, so that we can claim to have been a part of carrying out God's will. When we live in God's will, He can't help but want to make us succeed. After all, our success is His success.
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