Author: Luke Bachtold

Why We Should Quit Making Excuses

I decided to write today’s post on a parable in Luke 14. Today writing is all about excuses. We all use them but I want to remind you of the danger in them.

12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers[b] or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

15 When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant[c] to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you,[d] none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

Today in Luke 14, Jesus told a parable about a great banquet. The man in the parable wanted to throw this great feast! I can just imagine this in today’s world. It would be in a great big house with different foods all over for people to try and enjoy. There might be some light music, wine, and of course everyone would be dressed in their finest clothing. Ok let’s get back to this parable, this man paid for the food and prepared it all for his guests and then sent his servants out to gather the people he invited. Then he waited. His servants came back to him saying that all of his guests gave them excuses about why they couldn’t make it and NO ONE was coming. Can we just stop right there and start to think about this? How would you feel if you spent hundreds of dollars and multiple hours cooking this beautiful feast only to find out your guests were no longer coming. I’d be a little upset; ok I’d be pretty angry. Of course, this guy was too! What he did though was amazing. He invited people who were crippled, blind, and lame. These were people who would never be invited to such a dinner…yet they were. He did all this work, spent all this money, and didn’t want to see it go to waste. Jesus ends the parable with what the man says, “For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.”

 

Can you spot the bigger story behind this parable?

 

This is a story of the heavenly kingdom. The servants are the people of God who are reaching out the people of this world. We are reaching out to people but find that people don’t need God or aren’t ready to change. Time and time again we give excuses or say we aren’t ready to change but where does that leave us. Those people who think they have time, or don’t want to change yet….God says that none of them will ever taste his banquet. NONE of them will ever be in glory with him if they don’t decide now. Do you see who does come to the banquet? It’s the people who are weak, people who rely on God to be their strength. Most importantly, it’s the people who ACCEPTED the invitation.

 

I grew up in a small town where there were a lot of guys that grew up in a good home but strayed away from it because it was too “constricting” to be a Christian. After time, and a whole lot of excuses, most make it back to the faith but all assume that they have time to do that. We so easily forget the God is coming like a THEIF in the night. Remember that we don’t always have time, and God, our heavenly father, is always ready to welcome us home. All we have to do is stop making excuses.

Introducing: The Gospel of Luke

Hi everyone! I hope your Thursday is going well. Today I am introducing the gospel of Luke. When I got the schedule and found out I would be introducing Luke, I laughed a little about that because that is who I was named after. For a little while, I even pursued a life in the medical field and everything to really follow in his footsteps… you know, since he was a physician and all.

 

Ha, I’m just joking with you. Of course, I wasn’t doing it because of being named after him, but that would have been a cool story, huh? Long story short, I am no longer in the medical field anymore. Today, I want to begin our journey into the book of Luke.

 

Luke is actually only named 3 times in the whole Bible, and he wasn’t with Jesus during his time here. Luke was a gentile, he was humble, and he was the only one to stay with Paul until his death. Most people know that Luke was a physician, and besides writing the book of Luke, he also wrote the book of Acts. The gospel of Luke was thought to have been written around the 60 A.D. time period. The book of Luke is unique in a couple of ways to the other gospels. Let’s check the differences out together.

 

  • The book of Luke is filled with lots of eyewitness accounts dating all the way back to John the Baptist and ending with Jesus’s death and resurrection. The book is also the only gospel that includes the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.

 

  • The second thing I find really interesting is that the book of Luke is the gospel that includes the most stories of healing that Jesus did in His time here. This really shows that Luke was passionate about being a physician and had a lot of compassion towards those who were sick and needed healing.

 

As we continue through the chapters of Luke one by one, start to think about this book from the perspective of a physician. Remember that Luke was just a human, like you and me, so we can humanize him and can start to see the emotion and compassion in his writing. As we move forward, remember these characteristics of Luke. We are excited to share God’s word through the book of Luke!

Did You Know There is an Unforgivable Sin?

I remember growing up and learning right and wrong. Most of the time I thought I was right but the majority of that time I was actually wrong. I grew up with 4 sibling, 3 brothers, and a sister. I can remember vividly a time where I learned right from wrong real quick….

I was around the age of 10 and I was riding in our family go-cart. Go-carts weren’t anything special back then, they were just a piece of metal attached to four wheels and an engine with a measly four bars to protect us from rolling over on ourselves. As I was riding with my older brother one day, I noticed something. I started to look at the grass and for some reason, I really wanted to touch it. BUT. I knew it wasn’t the best Idea. That’s the KEY here. I KNEW, somehow, that it wasn’t the best idea.

I can’t really explain what happen after that because all I remember was my arm scratched from wrist to shoulder after tumbling out of the cart and walking away thinking that it wasn’t as great as I thought it would be to touch the grass. Of course, my older brother got in trouble for my mistake, I felt bad because you can’t really prevent stupidity from happening, it just happens. I was ok afterward but I learned that it wasn’t the right decision to make that day.

Now let me tell you how that relates to our passage today. Mark 3 talks about the unforgivable sin, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. After reading this passage multiple times, I started to want to learn more about what that meant. Can there truly be a sin that is unforgivable? Am I guilty of doing it? I started to feel unsure of myself. I grew up in the church and have been a Christ follower since I was 9 but after reading this passage I started to wonder if I have committed this sin and lost any chance of spending eternity with my savior. Read this verse with me:

 

“Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”

After reading this once, wouldn’t you start to think and reflect a bit on your life? Let’s start to explain what this means. Blasphemy is defined as, “the act or offense of speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things.” (Merriam-Webster) When you blasphemy the Holy Spirit, you are speaking badly, or against, the Holy Spirit. The key to remember is that if you have accepted Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit will convict you. Conviction is where the grace of God comes in. Without conviction, there isn’t a chance for redemption. If there is no redemption, there is no need for a savior because there is no belief that one is in the wrong. Conviction can be simply put as knowing that you were in the wrong. When the conviction is gone, blaspheming the Holy Spirit is possible.

Just like the story above, when I was riding my go-cart and fell out I knew I shouldn’t have done it but I did. There was conviction, and I learned that it wasn’t a good idea to reach out of the moving go-cart.

Take this day to reflect on what the Holy Spirit has been convicting you about. Remember that Eternity with our savior is worth unimaginably more than any pleasure Sin temporarily brings into your life.

The Freeing Power of Forgivness

I (Luke) just got married this past June to my beautiful wife Caitlin. We have a little apartment that we call home and are truly content with the little we have. I have always been someone who learns from others. Growing up, I looked up to my dad and learned as much as I could by watching. As I have grown into adulthood, I’ve started to learn from people in my field of work. I enjoy hearing their story and really talking to them about life and work.

“What’s your goal?” you might ask. My goal is to get ahead of the curve. I don’t want to hit the speed bumps that others have hit because I am a firm believer in learning from mistakes, even if I didn’t make the mistakes myself.

Now, let’s talk about marriage. I don’t think I had any way to fully prepare for the refining process that marriage truly brings into your life. In the past 7 months, I have learned so much about how broken I am as a human being. Before marriage, I was a big shot; I was confident and people knew it. There was no one in my life to keep me in line, and as I went through adulthood, I started to create these habits that stuck with me. Some were good, but most were bad. As the first few months of marriage went by, those “habits” came out in plain sight, and boy was that not fun. I felt “dirty.” The great news was that my wife showed me grace and forgave me countless times. Jesus has done that too throughout my life, but it’s now just becoming more visible to me.

Matthew 18 has a parable in it that talks about forgiveness. The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant reads:

“Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.[g] 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.[h] 25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 So the servant[i] fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii,[j] and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. 31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers,[k] until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

This parable shows the power of forgiveness that we can have in each of our daily lives, and especially in our marriages.

Carefully read this story. The servant pleads for mercy from the king, and the king finds it in his heart to forgive the servant of all of his debt and his baggage. Everything he owes to the king is gone in an INSTANT!

You might be able to relate to this better.  Think about if someone came to you and paid your house off or even your car off. How would that feel? No more mortgage payments… no more car payments.

You’d feel free, right?

Now, think of that from a spiritual aspect. In your life, what is your baggage and what are the things you are holding on to? God is ready to take those from you; all you need to do is ask. Ask for forgiveness for your sins, and I promise you, God will be happy to take that baggage from you.

Remember, this street goes both ways. You need to remember whose baggage you can take in your life. Who have you been holding back from forgiving? Who has done that one hateful deed that you just can’t seem to forgive? It’s in THOSE times you need to remember that our Holy Father chooses to forgive us of all our hateful or sinful actions. Why can’t we do the same for our brother or sister?

Forgiveness is freeing. Remember that as you go about your Thursday!

How the Bible Teaches Us to Handle Temptation

Matthew 4

What can we learn from Jesus? Chapter 4 of Matthew has four subheads, titled “The Temptation of Jesus,” “Jesus Begins His Ministry,” “Jesus Calls the First Disciples,” and “Jesus Ministers to Great Crowds.” If we just look at those titles, we can see Jesus throughout this chapter in Matthew.

In this post I will be focusing of two things: how Jesus dealt with temptation and how Jesus began his ministry.

Everyone has heard the story of how Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, then was tempted. I try to picture myself in those situations to make the Bible more real. I think of a time where I was so hungry I couldn’t think of anything else. I had just run a Tough Mudder. If you haven’t heard of one of it before, just imagine a 12 mile forrest, hill, and sand run filled with military style obstacles. After finishing that, I was exhausted and needed food more than I think I ever did. Luckily, McDonalds was only about 15 minutes away, so I was able to fill my belly with a large amount of fried food. Anyways, I’m sure you have your own stories also. So Jesus is in the wilderness, starving, only to visited by Satan to try to tempt him at his weakest points. Satan tries this three times before actually leaving, but each time he tries to tempt Jesus, Jesus speaks truth through Scripture. What does that tell us?

there is power in scripture

When temptation hits, remember that you have power over that temptation with God’s word.  None of us lack temptation. We are tempted on a daily basis, but the best question to ask yourself is how you handle temptation.

As I was finishing the chapter, one part really caught my eye. It was the part of the chapter where Jesus started calling his first disciples. The part that really caught my eye was how these men dropped everything to follow Jesus IMMEDIATELY. Scripture says it this way:

Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21 And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

I try to imagine Jesus coming up to me today at work and saying “follow me.” Would I truly stop what I was doing and go? To be totally honest, I would probably have a thousand things cross my mind first, from “What about my wife?” to “I have a great job here, and I love what I do, so why should I leave?” I think this passage helps us realize that Jesus will call us at some point. The only questions is, are we ready to take the call?

Think about that today.

There are a lot of things that tempt us in this world and make us think this is the best thing since sliced bread. But what we really need to do is remember that we are in this world and not of this world; our citizenship is in heaven, so we need to be ready to answer the call. Reflect on whether you would answer that call, cheerfully, today.