Live@5 – Thursday, March 17, 2022
Luke 16:14–18 (NKJV)
Jesus addresses the Pharisees regarding their love of money, among other things, in this additional follow-up to the parable of the unjust steward earlier in the chapter.
14 Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they derided Him. 15 And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.
Luke 16:14-17
16 “The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it. 17 And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail.
The Pharisees seemed to love wealth, and rejected Jesus’ notion of not serving “mammon” as He taught in the previous passage of Scripture in Luke. He warned them that God knows the condition of their hearts, and sees the greed and lust for wealth that gets in the way of their obedience to God. He reminded them that the system surrounding the law that had been adulterated to the point of oppressing the people serving it was now being displaced by the preaching of the kingdom of God. Their perversion of the law was no longer going to be sheepishly obeyed. The law itself was given by God and is still good. However, the man-made system of its interpretation is being replaced with a gospel of grace.
18 “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery.
Luke 16:18
Jesus then gives an example to them of divorce and remarriage. Men, including great leaders of the Jewish faith, had made exceptions and interpreted the law to the point that men could divorce and remarry for just any reason. Jesus brings them back to the law and its original intention, that of commitment and covenant for a lifetime. This is just one example of Jesus’ correct reinterpretation of the law. He contradicts the religious leaders’ twisting of Godly truth and brings them back to Biblical, divine truth.
When true followers of God allow other things to master them, they cease to recognize God and God and begin to follow their own desires and their own sense of truth. Are their things which you consider good and right that the word does not? If so, stop creating loopholes and excuses and simply believe and follow the tenets of the Word of God. It is higher than our logic and deeper than our understanding. It is not ours to rationalize God’s word to the point that we negate its power, but rather to obey it and live it.
Artwork from https://www.ucg.org/beyond-today/blogs/does-luke-16-16-mean-gods-law-has-been-done-away
Devoted To You 
Good Morning.
Law vs. Grace is a interesting by wrongly premised argument. First, the covenants are changed so anything in the law of Moses is Moot as is the leadership and enforcing of the law. The New Jer 23 covenant, see acts 15 and Hebrews 8 as well among others, show things have totally changed. The parables of jesus show us that the land lords are kicked out. They killed the prophets and they killed the son.
Jesus gave a new commandment. Love one another. And in Mark 12:30 he said that every thing in the law hung on loving God and loving your neighbor (see Deut 6:4-8) So while God hates new moons etc. See Isaiah 1 etc. His law is what 1John spells out which is a summary of all law that is good and holy while leaving all the other sorts of law that has nothing to do with Love out. So the Old law can speak to what is love. But it by law is not in force. Christs new law is. So, now we are not off the hook.
That said, Paul parsed out as did Jesus himself that salvation is not found by keeping the law. One can do everything right but without a relationship with God, without his spirit your spirit is still dead. A book of laws cannot raise the dead. Only reconciliation by faith and by the cross can restore the relationship. Suggesting that keeping the law is the basis of our salvation was a false teaching the religious leaders used to control others. Now our mediator is not a Sanhedrin man handling but Christ on the throne. Doing a good thing might make him happy but that does not make us his son. So being born again, repenting and putting our loyal faith back in him is the key. once our allegiances are to God, and our sins washed by the blood of Jesus our new relationship will cause us to Love. This is how people will know we are in him because we live. Our conduct speaks to the change of heart and the faith we have in him and the spirit that now works in us.
John 3:14-15 speaks to the contempt of Israel such that to get help from perishing from snakes they had to put a snake on a pole and look and be healed. We also if we remain in contempt will perish, but if we look to Jesus we will receive healing. The Idea of slippery grace and no rules and no conduct is not part of Christianity but law keeping to gain salvation is not part of Christianity. Faith/trust in God, the grace of the cross, and a new spirit is what makes us Christians.
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