A Friday-Friends* post by Mark Janke

I long to see Christ more clearly and delight in Him. These verses from the Gospel of Luke fill me with hope  —

But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. 14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15 for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.  Luke 1:13-15 (esv) 

And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, 42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.  Luke 1:41-44 (esv)

These verses fill me with hope because if the Holy Spirit can empower an infant in the womb to not only recognize, but to leap for joy over the presence of Christ when merely hearing Mary’s greeting, then surely the Holy Spirit can enable me to know and rejoice in Christ.

Pastor Mark Janke
http://franklinstreetchurch.org/

*Friday-Friends is a new feature at The Breadline where I invite some of my friends, old or new, to share something from the Word that has fed them spiritually. Mark Janke is one of my oldest friends, going back to my college days when I arrived at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire campus as a new believer. Mark was an upper-classman involved with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship who mentored me back then, and maintained a friendship over the decades.

The famous reply of Jesus when tempted (Matthew 4:4) originally came from Deuteronomy 8:3, “…man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” It is a profound truth, and vital for the Christian to understand. In the original context, it is given while recounting the provision of manna in the wilderness — when no other form of food was available, God provided bread from heaven for His people. This marvelous provision is what Jesus points in rebuking the devil. The Puritan Thomas Manton shows the significant connection of the two contexts as he expounds Matthew 4.

“In the place quoted, Moses speaks of manna, and shows how God gave His people manna from heaven, to teach them that though bread be the ordinary means of sustaining man, yet God can feed them by other means, which He is pleased to make use of for that purpose. His bare word, or nothing; all comes from His divine power and virtue, whatever He is pleased to give for the sustenation of man, ordinary or extraordinary. The tempter had said that either He must die for hunger, or turn stones into bread. Christ shows that there is a middle between both these extremes. There are other ways which the wisdom of God has found out or appointed by His word, or decreed to such an end, and makes use of in the course of His providence. And the instance is filthy chosen; for He that provided forty years for a huge multitude in the desert, he will not be lacking to His own Son, who had now fasted but forty days.”  [I:272]

Amen! 

pdb