Scripture to Read: Luke 19:41-44
As Jesus approached Jerusalem, He was brokenhearted for the lost souls there. God had Luke write this in Luke 19:41–44, “When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, 42 saying, ‘If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, 44 and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.’” Jesus was truly grieving over the souls in Jerusalem. God had Luke give us a beautiful picture of Christ’s love and His burden for the lost to know and follow Him. Jesus had just been honored as King, but His total focus was on the souls in Jerusalem who were missing that their Messiah had come for them. Jesus’s grief over them revealed their spiritual condition and that there was a very real destruction that was to come for them. The problem with every lost soul in Jerusalem was that they did not recognize God’s provision for their salvation through Jesus our Lord. The problem was that Jesus had taught there publicly. He had performed miracles there. Therefore, the blindness of the lost souls in Jerusalem was not due to ignorance, but to their failure to respond to what Jesus had revealed to them.
Challenge & Application
Why was Jesus so broken for the people of Jerusalem, and why did they not recognize Him as Messiah?
How broken are you for the lost, and what are you doing to reveal to them Christ as Lord?
Don’t forget to pray using the A.C.T.S. (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication) method!