Follow Me, I Came for You – Luke 5 (5/24)

Read Luke Chapter 5

Jesus is preaching to a dense crowd by the Sea of Galilee when He calls the fishermen Peter, James and John to follow Him. He did this after showing them with a miraculous catch of fish how they would do the same for Him one day, but by catching men instead.

Luke 5:10-11 “Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men.” When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.”

Next Jesus cleanses a Leper and forgives the sins of a paralytic. He shows His power over extreme physical conditions. The Leper showed great faith and Jesus showed His huge capacity for compassion in touching the untouchable. The four men carrying the paralytic showed great faith and Jesus showed through this healing that He had the authority to forgive sins. The healing was an outward sign of his power over sin, an inner healing that can’t be seen, except by its fruit. So here again is demonstrated that Jesus is God, since only God can forgive sins.

Luke 5:24 “…the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”

Jesus seemed to be on a roll of putting religious noses out of joint. Now He asks a Tax-Collector to ‘follow Him’ and proceeds to wine and dine with him and his friends; those hated charlatan Roman sympathisers – sinners all. When the religious Jews asked why He would do this, He simply replied that it was not those who are well who need a doctor but the sick; that He had come for sinners not the ‘righteous’ (by ‘righteous’, Jesus means the self righteous Pharisees who did not regard themselves to be sinners or in need of help but righteous and perfect already). Ouch! The self-righteous did not like that at all.

Luke 5:31 “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

In the last and cryptic verses of Chapter 5, Jesus is saying that He is doing a new thing and this new thing will be entirely different. The new will not mix with the old; it’s time to start over. The coming of God’s Son, Jesus would signify a new age of grace and replace, or fulfil, the old one of Law.

We should be encouraged by who we see Jesus calling: It is the whosoever from all walks of life, which should bring hope to us, because no amount of self willed righteousness will ever bring us closer to God. He offers Himself to us all, in Christ for free.

Luke 4Luke 6



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