devotional post #2013

Luke 16;19-23

Luk 16:19 “There was a rich man who dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted opulently every day.
Luk 16:20 But at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus whose body was covered with sores,
Luk 16:21 who longed to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Also, the dogs came and licked his sores.
Luk 16:22 “Now the poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s presence. The rich man also died and was buried.
Luk 16:23 And in Hades, he lifted up his eyes, while he was in torment, seeing Abraham from far off and Lazarus in his presence.

what God is looking for

Jesus ends this long sequence of parables with the story of the rich man and Lazarus because it brings the whole argument into sharp focus. Everything in Luke 15–16 has been Jesus’ response to the Pharisees’ complaint that he was spending time with “sinners,” the very people they believed were beneath God’s concern. So Jesus tells a series of stories designed to expose how differently God sees the world.

A shepherd leaves ninety‑nine sheep in the wilderness to search for the one that wandered off. A woman tears apart her house to recover a single lost coin. A father runs to embrace a son who disgraced him, while the older brother refuses to celebrate. A shrewd manager uses his last moments of employment to secure a future for himself. Each story presses the same truth from a different angle: God rejoices over the lost who are found, and God honors those who think about their future with him rather than clinging to the illusions of the present.

Then Jesus turns to the Pharisees and says, “You like to appear righteous in public, but God knows your hearts.” That is the hinge on which the final parable turns. The rich man in Luke 16:19–31 is the embodiment of outward success. He is comfortable, admired, and secure. He assumes that his present condition is a preview of his eternal one. Lazarus, meanwhile, is invisible to him—someone whose suffering does not register, someone whose presence at his gate is an inconvenience rather than a summons to compassion.

But Jesus overturns the Pharisees’ assumptions. The rich man’s comfort was temporary; Lazarus’s misery was temporary. What mattered was not how they appeared in the eyes of society but how they responded to God’s call. The rich man never recognized his need for mercy. He never repented. He never trusted the God who had spoken through Moses and the prophets. He lived as though he needed nothing, and that illusion decided his destiny.

The parable is not about economic status but spiritual posture. God is not looking for the self‑assured, the self‑sufficient, or the self‑confident. He is looking for those who know they need him—those who turn from their sin and trust his grace. The Pharisees missed the gospel because they could not imagine themselves as lost. Jesus tells these stories so that we will not make the same mistake.

LORD, we trust in your grace, not in our self‑confidence.