Blessed

There is an interesting interaction in Luke chapter eleven verses twenty-seven through twenty-eight. Jesus was in the middle of teaching when a woman cries out, basically, blessed is the woman who bore and raised you. Maybe this was a compliment in the sense that you are great because you have had great raising. No doubt Mary strived to raise Jesus right. (I think chapters one and two of Luke would prove this point.) But Mary was a human just like you and me. What do I mean by that? She was not perfect or sinless as some would teach. The Bible nowhere teaches that fact. She made mistakes as all parents do. Jesus’ teaching was not based on a flawed person, and that is why I think He responds in the way He does.

That response was: blessed are those who hear and observe the word of God. What made Jesus’ teaching so good was not that He was raised right, (this does not mean we do not try to raise our children right, Proverbs 22:6) but that He taught and observed the infallible word of God. No doubt there are some great teachers and parents in our world that might give us some great advice, but when you compare all they teach versus the word of God, there is no competition.

So what is a lesson for us? We need to hold the word of God in the highest of regards. We need to hunger and thirst for it (Matthew 5:6). It is easy to fill our lives with so many other things and let the word take a back seat. In our fast paced world, the word can seem outdated or boring. When we realize it is how God communicates with us, we should love the word. It is not enough to just hear the word or learn the word; we must apply it. It can only be life-changing when we do (James 1:21-25). The question then must be asked: am I blessed because I am hearing the word and obeying it?