Luke – John

— Read and listen to the Bible being read at the same time; also, A. R. Wells, 1908, shares a (self-application) “tiny meditation” on each chapter.

Jesus, please carry (insert your name here) in your arms. Amen!

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Click for a brief easy English summary of the book of Luke.

Suggestions:
1) Read the “tiny meditation” before and/or after you read the Bible chapter to help make a self-appllication of the scriptures read.
2) Want to use both your eye gate and ear gate in taking in the Word? Just click the “Read” chapter to get started.

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Click to Read Luke 1—My Magnificat

Let my soul magnify the Lord, for the Lord has magnified me! He has createned me and exalted me and overpassed my hopes with His bounty. I cannot overpass Him or enlarge Him, but I can magnify my love for Him, and my service, and my praise. O my soul, magnify the Lord!

Mary Visited by the Angel Gabriel

Read Luke 2—My Good Tidings

“Good tidings of great joy,” and “to all people.” News. Most joyful news. To all. Then to me. Have I really received it? Why, then, am I not joyful?

Angel Announcing the Birth of Jesus

Read Luke 3—My Repentance

I have only one evidence of repentance, and that is the fruits of repentance. I have tried others. I have presented the feeling of repentance, but that has been rejected. And the words of repentance, but they have been refused. Ah, the deeds of repentance! They have brought peace to my soul.

Read Luke 4—My Temptation

My Lord would not have suffered His temptations if they had not been my temptations also. He conquered them to show me how I may conquer them: by resistance of evil; by hatred of sin, in thought as well as deed; by prayer; by the sword of the Spirit, the invincible Word!

Jesus read from the Book of Isaiah Luke 4:17

Read Luke 5—My Friends

All around me are those that need my Savior. They are sick, and He is the Physician. They are ignorant, and He is the Teacher. They are lost, and He is the Good Shepherd. I know the way to Him, and they do not. How am I worse than the ugliest churl if I do not help to carry them to Him, yea, even though I must break through roofs to lower them at His feet?

Friends Carrying the Paralytic Man (Luke 5:18)

Read Luke 6—My Appointment

What an eternal honor it would be, to have one’s name enrolled among those Twelve! What twelve names, among the sons of men, have received a more glorious privilege? Ah, none; but every name that has confessed Jesus to be Lord has a privilege as glorious. My name, even mine, may stand among the ever-widening Twelve!

Read Luke 7—My Doubts

When I share the doubts of John, in his moody prison, let me go forth with John’s messengers and see Jesus at work. Let me see Christianity opening blind eyes, raising up the lame, cleansing the leper, raising the dead! In the sunshine of that joy my doubts will melt away.

Read Luke 8—My Storms

Tempests arise in my soul more terrible than any on the Sea of Galilee. I am not as fearful of them as I should be, and yet I am fearful. But I am not often so terrified as to be driven to the One who alone can still them, the One who is with me in the boat.

A Sower Went Out Scattering Seed (Luke 8:5)

Read Luke 9—My Life

Let me once clearly know what my life is, and I shall begin to live! But I follow a no-life, a mirage, a sham of a life, and deem myself to be living. Could I lose that life, it would be my life’s chief gain.

Read Luke 10—My Neighbor

My neighbor is he who has fallen among thieves. Yes, and my neighbors are the priest and the Levite, who passed by on the other side. Perhaps they are in sorer need of me than the wounded man, for their hurts are in a deeper, more difficult part. My neighbor is he that needs me, in any way, body or soul.

The Good Samaritan, Luke 10:33-34

Read Luke 11—My Request
What do I desire of the Lord? Is it something that He can grant? Yes, always. For what I really desire is not the wild and foolish thing that often springs to my lips, and that He would no more give me than a kind father would give poison to his child that cried for it. What I really desire is the joy and peace that my Father is always eager for me to have.

Friend Wanting to Borrow Bread at Midnight (Luke 11:5-8)

Read Luke 12—My Anxiety

How do I most surely disclose the folly of my heart? By my foolish fears. I have God for my Father, and tremble like a forlorn orphan. I have all the wealth of the universe, and go ragged like a pauper. When shall I believe my beliefs and confide in my confidence?

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Read Luke 13—My Leaven

Is the leaven of the Word really hidden in my heart? If it is, let me look to my life. It cannot remain without a witness of itself. It cannot tarry in one place. It must permeate. It must become my life, my self.

A woman bent with infirmity was healed by Jesus, Luke 13:11-13

Read Luke 14—My Promotion

What seat do I occupy at the feast of life? Am I in the lower seats, and discontented? Am I in the lower seats, and there in the expectation that I shall be asked to go up higher? There is no virtue in that. But am I in the lower seats because I really think that I belong there? Because I honor others and distrust myself? Then I may some day be invited higher.

Plowing with Oxen (Luke 14:19)

Read Luke 15—My Joy
What constitutes my pleasure? Eating and drinking and wearing and getting and owning? In none of these things can I have fellowship with the joy of my Lord. His joy is in what others eat and drink and wear and get and own. Can I attune my joy to His?

Father welcoming his prodigal son home, Luke 15:20-24

Read Luke 16—My Fidelity

A key is a small thing, but it opens a large thing. No test is a small thing that determines our fitness for a large thing. And every act of life is a test, and every lot in life is an examination, and the humblest life on earth, if well lived, may become the passport into the sublimest kingdom of eternity.

The Rich Man and Lazarus, Luke 16:19-21

Read Luke 17—My Profit

I am an unprofitable servant. At the best, my service yields no surplus, nothing over and above my duty. I can no more than earn my living, I can make no profit for my Master. Oh, may that Master look leniently on His slave!

One former leper returns to thank Jesus, Luke 17:14-19

Read Luke 18—My Importunity

O my Judge! O my Physician! With an eagerness more than any wronged, more than any sick, I come to Thee. Thou hast all I need, and in over-abundance. And Thou hast this that I need most of all, the willingness to give. Thou dost ask only the asking. Thou eager and I eager, shall not I receive?

Jesus heals a blind beggar by the road, Luke 18:35-43

Read Luke 19—My Colt

My Master sends to me for many things. “The Lord hath need of them,” the messengers say. “And I also, I have need of them,” say I. Ah, fool that I am, not to know that what the Lord borrows He returns tenfold!

Read Luke 20—My Tribute

I render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God things that are God’s; but do I render to God all that is His? And do I not render to Caesar far more than is his? It is so easy to stint heaven, and it is so hard to stint earth!

Read Luke 21—My Mites

Shall I give the widow’s mites? That is shall I give my all? It would not be a small sum, as was hers; and yet, large or small, it must be my all to equal hers. Oh, how pitiful are my gifts, after all! How little do they cost me, and how foolishly I overestimate them! May the Holy Spirit show me myself, and in opening my eyes may He open my purse.

Read Luke 22—My Pitcher

Whatever my task, though it be only drawing water from the well, it may be the token for the messengers of the Most High. By my performance of it I shall be known to be the Lord’s. In the doing of it will come my highest honor, my connection with the noblest renown.

Follow a Man Carrying a Jug of Water (Luke 22:10)

Read Luke 23—My Herod

My Herod is the one on whom I throw, or try to throw, the tasks that God has given me to do, the problems that God has given me to solve. It is all emptiness, for no one can do my work for me, or solve my perplexities, but I pretend it to myself. Any excuse will deceive me, and I think that God is deceived when I am!

Read Luke 24—My Stupidity.

The Lord is by my side, and I do not see Him. He talks with me as I walk, and I do not hear Him. He prepares food for me, and I do not thank Him. I see only common men and hear only common sounds. Ah, when shall I open my eyes, and when shall I unstop my ears?
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Click for a brief summary of the book of John.

Click to Read John 1—My Light.

The true Light has shone upon me, as upon every one that has come into the world. But, seeing, have I seen it? As it shines in and through the light of the sun, and all things that have been made, do I foolishly see the natural light and catch no gleam of the Light behind the light? That is to be blind indeed.

Read John 2—My Money-Changing.

I do not set up a bank in the house of God, or open my ledger there before men’s eyes; but what, before the eyes of God, do I bring into the sacred precincts? What greeds, what ambitions, what worries, what animosities! Were Christ to come again with the whip of cords, would He lash backs alone, and not also souls?

Read John 3—My New Birth

I am in this beautiful world of God’s. Am I also in the far more beautiful kingdom of God? I belong to the world that passes away–ah, how rapidly! Do I belong to the world that endures–ah, how happily and surely? Let me, in the midst of all my toiling and getting, remember that there is nothing more important to me than this.

Read John 4—My Thirst

I know the waters of earth. I have drunk of the well of pleasure, the well of knowledge, of other wells as promising. And I am as thirsty as before. But there is a well from which I have never gone thirsty away, a well whose water reaches to the innermost longings, and satisfies them wholly. O Jesus Christ, my Joy and my Portion forever!

Read John 5—My Waiting

He had waited thirty-eight years for the Healer,–that sick man by the pool of Bethesda; but it was all as a day, after the Lord had cured him! And I, if the Lord bids me wait in my sorrows and trials the rest of my life,–yet there will come a time when He will take me by the hand, and bid me arise, and all my grief will be forgotten in that hour.

Pool of Bethesda, John 5:2

Read John 6—My Bread

I eat; but what do I eat? I eat; but I am not fed. The bread I eat is not the true bread, the living bread, the life of the Living One. I eat ashes, and call it bread; yes, and beg for more ashes, and moan because I have not enough.

There was only five loves and two fish available John 6:9

Read John 7—My Will

Do I know Christ’s teachings, know them inwardly, rejoicingly, powerfully? Alas, no! but only, or chiefly, with the mind. It is because I do not will Christ’s will. When His will is my will, His wisdom also will be mine, and will shine in all my living.

Read John 8—My Freedom

I am to know the truth, and the truth is to make me free. If, then, I feel myself constrained and in bondage to anything, it is because I do not know the truth. I may know it with the head and not with the heart. I may know it with the heart and not with the life. At any rate, I do not know it.

Read John 9—My Certainty

Skeptics may seek to confuse me, but they shall not confuse me. Worldlings may ridicule me, but they shall not disturb me. One thing I know, and that knowledge cannot be shaken; that once I was blind, but now I see. I was blind to the best things in time and eternity, and now, in all their glory, they have entered into my life.

People are surprised the blind man can now see, John 9:8

Read John 10—My Door

Am I seeking other doors than the one Door? Other entrances to joy? Other portals to power? Other ways to wisdom? If I am, let me turn from them with scorn, knowing how empty is the hope they hold out. For there is no door but one, to all that I wish to reach.

Reads John 11—My Resurrection

Out of the deaths I die daily, my Resurrection, O my Lord! Out of my fears of the death to come, my Resurrection, O Christ! Out of all danger of the eternal death, my Resurrection, O my Savior!

Jesus commands Lazarus to come forth from the grave John 11:43-44

Read John 12—My Spikenard

It is not much I have that is precious and fragrant; but how happy I am that I have anything that is at all fit to pour out at my Savior’s feet! The cost? It is a privilege! The trouble? It is a joy! The sneers of men? They are my crown!

…painting by Madox Brown, 1851[/caption]

Read John 13—My Basin

In what way am I following my Lord’s example, and washing the feet of my brothers, as He bade me? What is my basin? What is the towel wherewith I gird myself? Though I possess many goods, that basin shall be my most valued possession. Though, my garments are many and rich, I shall have no garment so highly esteemed.

Jesus washes the disciple’s feet, John 13:5

Read John 14—My Worries

Every worry is a direct transgression of my Lord’s command not to let my heart be troubled. It is an admission that I do not believe in God, or in my Savior. It is a proof that the Comforter whom Christ sends is not with me. It is a denial of my faith, a negation of my religion.

Read John 15—My Source

I am a branch. That I cannot avoid. But of what vine am I a branch? Of the True Vine, or the false vine? Of the vine whose sap flows eternally and pure, or of the vine whose sap will soon dry up and the stalk wither away?

Read John 16—My Comforter

He is the Comforter of the nations, yet He deigns to comfort my distresses. He is the support of Paul and Luther and all men of might, yet He condescends to my feebleness, and does not call it condescension. God of very God, one of the blessed Trinity, and yet mine!

Read John 17—My Glory

If even Christ is glorified in His followers, glorified with the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, then surely Christ’s followers are glorified with Christ. Ah, to seek the petty glory of the world, the transitory applause of time, when this eternal renown is within my reach!

Read John 18—My Denial

Not in saying that I do not know Christ; I would not say that; but in saying that I know Him, and then not knowing Him. Not in denying my Lord, but in confessing Him, and falsely. In that is my peril. For between a traitorous denial and a hypocritical confession there is little to choose.

Read John 19—My Calvary

It is there that I should be, if sin had its way with me. It is there that I should suffer, if my punishment were what I deserve. I am not there, because He was there. I am not suffering, I shall not suffer, because He suffered; nay, because He suffers still!

Portrait of Christ Done with a Single Pen Stroke (1884), John 19:5

Read John 20—My Doubts

I have had my doubts, but the blood from the cross has washed them all away. I have had questions, but the wounds in His hands and feet have answered them all. If I am ever skeptical, it is because I am far from Christ. When He is with me, I know! I know!

Mary Magdalene Finds the Stone Rolled Away from the Tomb (John 20:1)

Read John 21—My Proof

If I would show my Lord how I love Him–, as I would–let me show Him how I love those whom He loves. Let me take His place, so far as I can take His place, and do the things that He would do. Let me minister in His stead and in His name. That will be proof to Him that I love Him, and all the proof He needs.