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This week we begin chapter 22 of Luke’s Gospel. Please read verses 1-13 every day this week and, if possible, use a different translation each day, asking God to open your eyes to fresh revelation from His Word.
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Luke 22:7-12 (NIV)
‘Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.” “Where do you want us to prepare for it?” they asked. He replied, “As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters, and say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ He will show you a large upper room, all furnished. Make preparations there.”’
Have you ever heard the phrase ‘As luck would have it’? I’ve heard so many people use it when they’re telling a story and something happens that is not normal or it happens ‘co-incidentally’. For example, someone may say “I was driving my car once and I didn’t realise that I was low on petrol, well, as luck would have it, there was a petrol station very close.”
Personally, I have been involved in many situations that most people would put it down to coincidence. As a child of God, as someone who is under His care and protection, I don’t really believe in coincidence. I don’t believe in luck either. Don’t misunderstand me here, I have, on many occasions while watching rugby matches said something like “that was an unlucky bounce.” However, as far as our lives are concerned, I firmly believe that the Scripture is correct when it says ‘The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord’ and ‘I know the plans I have for you says the Lord’. Our lives are in His hands and while I don’t believe that we are being forced to follow a particular path, I believe that while we’re on that path, God will ‘watch over His Word to perform it’.
One such occasion is shown here in our verses today. We saw something similar when Jesus sent His disciples in Jerusalem to get a donkey. Here we see something perhaps just as strange. They are being sent into the city and are to follow the man that they see carrying a jar of water. In fact, they are to follow him home and then tell him that ‘The Teacher’ wants to use his guest room.
Can you imagine how bizarre this actually was for these men? Or perhaps, they’d gone beyond analysing things. It could be that after the donkey incident, they were prepared to do anything that Jesus says. That’s a great place to be isn’t it? Can you remember what Mary told the servants in the wedding at Cana? “Whatever He says to you, do it.” It didn’t matter how strange or how crazy it sounded, just do it. Sure enough, the disciples entered the city and found the man exactly as Jesus said, and after following him to his house, everything was exactly as Jesus predicted.
One other thing that perhaps most people miss in this story is that the man was ‘carrying a jar of water’. This was most unusual. Men would carry water in a skin. It was the women who would carry the jars. So, this man would have made a decision on this day to carry a jar just so that the disciples would be able to recognise him.
This was all in the plan of God and the people had been playing their part, perhaps without even knowing it. “As luck would have it”? Not at all. God has a plan for each of us and I promise you that it’s a plan to prosper us and not to harm us. A plan to give us hope and a future.
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