JOHN SHIRK – In the Year of Trust, today’s Focus on God examines Jesus as a storyteller.
According to Matthew 13:3, Jesus told a large crowd “many things in parables….”
Jesus told stories to tell people what the kingdom of God was like. He used ordinary things in His stories that would have been familiar to the people in His time. Through the use of parables, we have heard about the heart of compassion of the Good Samaritan, and learned about repentance through the Prodigal Son.
The Gospel is a love story about God taking extraordinary measures to win back the loyalty of those who had wandered away from Him. When we unite with Christ, our story is woven into His story for the glory of His name for all eternity.
The story of God’s grace is a reason to trust in God for today and forever.
John Shirk
john@wjtl.com
JOHN SHIRK – In the Year of Exploration, today’s Reason to Believe is the parables taught by Jesus.
Jesus fulfilled many prophecies in the Old Testament. One of them comes from Psalm 78:2, which says, “I will open my mouth in parables.” In the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew tells us that Jesus fulfilled these words when He spoke in parables.
These parables were stories that Jesus told to describe what God’s kingdom is like. To the average person, these were interesting stories. To the person who had understanding, these parables were more than just interesting stories. They reflected important truths about the nature of God’s Kingdom.
In Matthew 13, Jesus told His disciples why he taught the people in parables. He said to them, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance.” The parables were structured in such a way that His followers could understand them, because they accepted His words. But to the hearts that were calloused, they heard, but did not understand. Yet, if their hearts were open to His message, they would understand and turn to God for the healing of their souls.
Each parable taught by Jesus is a reason to believe in God’s good news.
John Shirk
john@wjtl.com
