Advice From a Doctor
     is the title I give.
To a series of sermons
     on how we should live.
We’ll spend a whole year,
     perhaps even more.
Listening to Luke
     for what he has in store.
And while we will learn
     of the Christ who can save.
We’ll focus more closely
     on the advice that Luke gave.

So very often
     when we look at God’s Word.
We go out and live
     like none of it was heard.
I want to do more
     than know what Christ did.
I want people to see,
     in my heart His Word’s hid.
If sin’s crucified,
     as His Word does say.
Then it’s not I who lives,
     but He lives today.

If I have died
     and He lives in me.
Then people should notice
     it’s Jesus they see.
So I study harder
     and take a good look.
At just what He says
     when I open His Book.
Not so I know it
     as a collection of fact.
But that it transforms me
     in the way that I act.

Jesus did tell me
     to do my good deeds.
So people do see Him
     as I’m meeting their needs.
To offer forgiveness
     and grace without end.
To pray that they’ll know Him
     as redeemer and friend.
When I’m more like Jesus
     to the people I meet.
Perhaps they will seek Him
     and fall at His feet.

That is the purpose
     of the sermons I preach.
To help us live different,
     the Bible I teach.
Not so we know more
     for information.
We practice it daily
     for transformation.
When our life is changed
     by advice that Luke gives.
We’re more likely heard
     when we say that Christ lives.
©

I’ve been spending time with God in the gospel of Luke as I continue preparing a sermon series that I am preaching. The point of the series is not to simply know the life of Christ for information, but to allow His life to transform the way we live. I pray that we represent Christ well in all of our interactions with people.

In prayer,
Tom