Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last. – Luke 23:46

Today's Scripture Reading (February 18, 2024): Luke 23

"Into your hands, I commit my spirit." It is a simple phrase, but Jesus knew that it was at this point that what was God in the Father flowed through what was God in him. It was something that Jesus had known throughout his ministry. And this wasn't the first time he had said something like this during his ministry.

During the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus included some time teaching about prayer. He said that we shouldn't pray as the hypocrites do because they do it all for show, praying wordy, complex prayers in the hope that they will gain the attention of the gods. But Jesus instructed his followers to pray simply. 

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
 on earth as it is in heaven (Matt 6:9-10 [NIV])

Your kingdom come, Your will be done. We are to pray that we are willing to commit what God has placed in us to his purpose. It isn't far from "Into Your hands I commit my spirit." Jesus didn't say it just because it sounds good. He knew that the power behind the Christian life was found in that simple act of placing what is eternal in us, our spirit or our soul, into the hands of God.

Jesus did it again in the Garden: "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will" (Matthew 26:39). This is not about me, God. It is about you. Into your hands, I commit what is essentially me.

Over and over in scripture, we are instructed to reach out to God through faith. In response, he reaches back and touches that God place inside us. And his power flows through us. We don't always understand God's purpose, but his purpose is always there.

And now, as Jesus came to the end of his life, he speaks the words he had spoken all his life. Father, I commit my Spirit into your hands, let your will be done, and may your kingdom become a reality down here, even on a crude Roman cross.

God touched what was divine in Jesus, who was fully God, and by the time the ladies came on Sunday Morning, he was no longer there. He had risen just as he said. The Danish Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard stated, "Life can be understood backwards, but it has to be lived forwards." Blessed are they who "live life forwards," believing that God will be all He has said He will be. And in him, we can commit our lives and our spirits.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: John 18