Luke 6:10–11: “And when He had looked around at them all, He said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ And he did so, and his hand was restored as whole as the other. But they were filled with rage, and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.”

February 17th, 2022 by Pastor Ed in devotional

Dr Luke doesn’t want the reader to miss the fact that Jesus was “looking around at them all,” taking the time to look carefully into the eyes of every man standing there, giving them a chance to respond to the question of whether or not it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath. But no one responded. Imagine standing eyeball to eyeball with the Creator of the Universe! Aren’t you glad you weren’t there that day? Imagine being caught in eternity having to remembering that look of compassion on Jesus’ face and the hardness of your own heart.

Jesus said to the man, “stretch out your hand.” Strangely the man did not argue with Jesus as he was told to stretch out his useless hand. No, he simply obeyed. And then “his hand was restored as whole as the other,” or we might say it became a perfect match of the other. The scribes and Pharisees responded in anger to Jesus’ act of compassion because in doing so He was disregarding their traditions, and that always aggravates the religious. To them, Jesus had radical views of worship and it attacked their limited view of God. Did God create us in order to honor Him on the Sabbath? Do we exist to satisfy God’s ego and to appease Him? Are we supposed to worship in order to gratify some need that God has? No, of course not! If man was made for the Sabbath, then those things might be true. But back in Mark, Jesus said to them, “the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). Jesus was saying it is always right to do a good thing, it is always right to bring rest and healing to man, on the Sabbath or any other day of the week for that matter.

There are 2 things we can take from this story. First, the day of worship and rest isn’t for God but for us, His created beings. The Designer has hard-wired us to need 1 day of rest out of every 7 days. Second, when God tells us to do something that seems physically impossible, we only have to try to reach out and be obedient. God never asks us to do something that He won’t also provide the power to do.

“LORD, we do want to experience Your moving in our lives, so we choose to follow You this day.”