Nuggets 58: A Chance to Start Over

  • B. Shelburne
  • Feb 24, 2007
  • Series: Nuggets

It was worship day in Jesus' home town of Nazareth.  Jesus, just beginning his ministry, had been asked to speak at the synagogue service.  A rotation of scriptures was read on consecutive Sabbaths through the year.  The scripture that day "happened" to be Isaiah 61 which foretold Messiah's mission.  Jesus stood up and read...

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

"Today," Jesus said, "this scripture is fulfilled."  Thus he announced the agenda for his ministry.  As his followers it should be ours as well.  We meet many people who have money but are still poor; who are walking free but are imprisoned; who see but are blind; and who are oppressed by others or by their own bad choices.  Or maybe we are those people.

Jesus came to "proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."  Jubilee--every fiftieth year in Israel--a blessed year of beginning again.  If adversity had forced a family to sell its family inheritance, the property returned to the family.  All debts were canceled and slaves were set free.  What a wonderful way for Jesus to picture the gospel!  What many of us wouldn't give for a new beginning!   To make some better choices.  To be healed from what others have done to us or what we have done to ourselves.  To have a new reason for living.

"If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

Luke 4:16-21;  2 Corinthians 8:9;  Ephesians 1:7-18;  1 Peter 1:3,4;  Matthew 11:2-5;  John 8:32,34,36,44;  Romans 6:1-7;  9:1-41;  2 Corinthians 4:4;  Romans 7:25;  Romans 7:24-8:2;  Leviticus 25;  Ephesians 4:22-32;  Acts 5:20;  2 Corinthians 5:17

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Copyright 2007 by G.B. Shelburne, III.  May be freely reproduced or forwarded for non-commercial purposes provided content is unchanged and this copyright notice is included.  These shepherding messages are sent to members and friends of New Beginnings Church (www.nbchurch.com), to students and alumni of South Houston Bible Institute (www.shbi.org), and to other interested persons.

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