Read Luke 11:29-54

By: Max Joyner

God wants you to enjoy His blessings and to use them to make a difference in the world around you – Bruce Wilkinson

Have you ever asked for a sign from God? I have. I’ve been in low patches and it just seemed like one thing after another was going wrong. I’ve been spiritually beat up and I couldn’t see God’s work in any of it. It was like I had blinders on and, in anger and desperation, I would challenge God to take them off me and show me that He’s there. It doesn’t always work that way. More importantly, we shouldn’t expect Him to work that way.

In Luke 11:29-53, Jesus is fed up with the Pharisees and their scribes, or lawyers, for challenging Him to act. They tell Him to prove that He’s the Messiah by performing a sign (even though they’ve already witnessed several miracles.)

Jesus sees that they just don’t get it and He’s not there to bend over backward to change their minds. He has bigger fish to fry and goals that have longer (eternal) terms. He answers them by referring to a previous sign in Scripture and giving them a lesson on spiritual light.

He uses Jonah’s time for three days and nights in the belly of a fish to foreshadow His own death and resurrection, “For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Ninevah, so will the Son of Man be a sign to this generation” (Luke 11:30).

The people of Ninevah heard Jonah’s message and repented and this is what Jesus wants for everyone hearing His message as well. His lesson on spiritual light teaches that “your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness.” (Luke 11:34) Jesus wants us to see through spiritually healthy eyes which, in turn, fills our whole bodies with the light of Christ.

I don’t think that this was the sign that the Pharisees were asking for but we do know that in this brief exchange a miracle was performed. Jesus’ message was recorded and this lesson becomes part of our legacy as Christ followers. He teaches us to remember God’s past works and to see the Light in our circumstances instead of accepting the world’s dark version. Whatever difficult circumstances we find ourselves in, we can turn to Scripture and see God prevailing. However dark a situation seems, we know that there is Light that will penetrate if we seek it.

These truths are a lifeline that connects us with God and make it possible for us to see signs and blessings happening all around us.

One Tuesday morning, I was sitting with my daughter Ellie on my lap while she was eating cereal. My other two children, Leila and Leo, were playing ‘Heart and Soul’ (you know- from the movie Big) on the piano. Usually, mornings are a very stressful and rushed time for me, but in that moment, everything seemed to stop. I was struck by how blessed I am and how much He loves me. It was a sign from God and I didn’t even ask him for one.