Daily Archives: December 2, 2013

You Are The Answer

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YOU ARE THE ANSWER

“Later the Master selected seventy and sent them ahead of Him in pairs to every town and place where He intended to go. He gave them this charge: ‘What a huge harvest! And how few the harvest hands. So on your knees; ask the God of the Harvest to send harvest hands.’

“‘On your way! But be careful — this is hazardous work. You’re like lambs in a wolf pack. Travel light; comb and toothbrush and no extra baggage. Don’t loiter and make small talk with everyone you meet along the way.'” Luke 10:1-4 (The Message).

This sounds like a typical missionary prayer meeting, doesn’t it? But does God really sit around waiting for us ask Him to send missionaries out to the “mission field”? Why would Jesus send them ahead of Him and then promptly tell them to pray that God would send people out? Was it to boost the number of workers or was it some kind of preparation for their own hearts?

Who were these people that Jesus sent ahead of Him? Seventy people? Where did they come from and what connection did they have with Him? Since He was always thronged with people, there must have been those who regularly followed Him although they were not part of the inner group. He must have recognised them and got used to seeing their faces in the crowd. Perhaps He even spent time with them in the late afternoon after He had dismissed the crowd.

Whatever their relationship with Him, when He needed people to prepare the way for Him, they were there and they were available to do what He asked them to do. It was to them, not to His regular disciples that He gave these detailed instructions including to pray for reinforcements.

Since they were the answer to their own prayers, was this Jesus’ way of developing a mind-set in them which gave them a better understanding of what their role was to be in the kingdom of God? Although He had twelve men who were constantly with Him and who were His recognised disciples, it did not mean that others were excluded. It also did not mean that others were of less importance and value to Him than the Twelve.

The instructions He gave this wider group were almost the same as those He had given to the Twelve when He sent them out on their first preaching tour. By involving these people He was teaching them that He was not the head of an exclusive club. The kingdom of God belongs to anyone who is willing to come under His authority and do what He tells them; and so is the mandate to open the doors of God’s kingdom to whoever will receive it.

Jesus is encouraging us to realise that we don’t have to sit around waiting for a special invitation to be part of God’s kingdom or to invite others to come under His yoke. When we become the answer to our own prayers instead of sitting around waiting for someone else to respond, we have finally caught on to what is in God’s heart. It’s for everyone to participate in and for everyone to share.

Whether we stay at home or take the message to the ends of the earth is not the most important issue. What really matters is that we share the blessing of being in the kingdom of God by the way we live it out and by the way we speak about it in the most natural way possible. Wherever we are and wherever we go, there are people needing to hear about a life of freedom and joy under Jesus’ yoke.

The next important fact for these recruits was to know that they were only the forerunners wherever they went, preparing the way; Jesus would follow, revealing who He was to the people who had seen and heard His followers. We’re not in this alone. Jesus may no longer be here in person but His representative, the Holy Spirit is with us, in us and ahead of us to do the inner work of convincing those whose hearts are hungry, that Jesus is the Son of God.

So, let’s ask what we can do. Let’s be the answer to our own prayers, shall we?

Selective Deafness

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SELECTIVE DEAFNESS

 “John spoke up, ‘Master, we saw a man using your name to expel demons and we stopped Him because he wasn’t of our group.’  Jesus said, ‘Don’t stop him. If he’s not an enemy, he’s an ally.’

“When it came close to the time for His Ascension, He gathered up His courage and steeled Himself for the journey to Jerusalem. He sent messengers on ahead. They came to a Samaritan village to make arrangements for His hospitality. But when the Samaritans learned that His destination was Jerusalem, they refused hospitality.

“When the disciples James and John learned of it, they said, ‘Master, do you want us to call a bolt of lightning down out of the sky and incinerate them?’ Jesus turned on them: ‘Of course not!’ And they travelled on to another village.”  Luke 9:49-55 (The Message)

Talk about selective hearing! James and John’s attitude was proof that they had not taken in a word Jesus had said about true greatness.

What had these men learned from their association with Jesus? From non-religious guys who were part of the “out” group as far as their religious leaders were concerned, they had developed the idea that they were now part of a new “in” group!

They were very protective of their status as followers of Jesus — disciples of the newest and most popular rabbi in Israel. Although He had many followers on the fringe, Jesus had not invited anyone else to be part of the “in” group and they wanted to be sure that no one gate-crashed their party.

Anyone of the “them” group who happened to “get” what Jesus had been teaching and act on it was frowned on, not encouraged, because he was not one of “us”. They proudly announced to Jesus that they had put a stop to a man’s enthusiastic participation in doing the “kingdom stuff” by casting out demons, thinking that He would applaud them for their loyalty to Him. They were not anticipating the surprising rebuke they received for their trouble! ‘Don’t stop him,’ Jesus said. ‘If he’s not an enemy, then he’s a friend.’

James and John were such fiery characters that they had earned the nickname, “sons of thunder”. To protect their inner circle they were prepared to use their new-found authority to incinerate people who dared to oppose them, especially the hated Samaritans! Thinking that Jesus would applaud their outrage for the snub they had received, they wanted His approval for their plan to wipe out the village.

What did Jesus think of these goings-on from His disciples? For all their response to His teaching and demonstrating His yoke, they were still thinking and acting in exactly the same way as they did before they met Him. It seems that everything He taught them bounced off them like a ball off a wall. In fact, an “outsider” had caught on to what they, the “insiders” had missed. To cast out demons “in His name” meant that the unknown man, who was not a disciple, was doing what their rabbi did in the disposition of their rabbi.

How sad that many of Jesus’ self-proclaimed “followers” today have just as much of a “we – they” mentality as the disciples had. Being a Christian is being part of an exclusive “club” and to be a Christian minister is to have an elevated position in this club.

To get the real picture, let’s go back to Jesus’ visual aid on greatness. He insisted that to be truly great, one must use one’s position to elevate others, not to put them down or lord it over them. Get down to the level of the lowest and treat them with dignity and respect.

Jesus was the greatest and truest model of what He taught, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:6-8 (NIV).

Are you as selectively deaf as the disciples were?

Jesus Turned Tough?

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JESUS TURNED TOUGH?

“As they were walking along the road, a man said to them, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.’

“He said to another man, ‘Follow me.’ But he replied, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’

“Still another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord: but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.’ Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.'”  Luke 9:57-62 (NIV).

I have deliberately not used The Message for my Bible reference today because the paraphrase misses the impact of Jesus’ words. When you read this passage, does He not sound rather unsympathetic and off-handed? It is so out of character that we have to dig deeper into the meaning and impact of what He said to the individuals who wanted to follow Him.

At face value and in response to the first man who wanted to follow Him, it seems that Jesus was trying to put him off because the life of a disciple meant a life of poverty and deprivation. What a horrible misrepresentation of God! Jesus was neither poor nor did He call those who follow him to a life of poverty. He wore the outer garment of a man of means and status –a seamless robe. Wealthy women supported Him and He would have received offerings from people who followed Him and valued His ministry.

Hebrew people did not always take the words of their rabbis literally. They would have asked the question, ‘What do foxes do in dens and birds do in nests?’ They don’t live in them; they reproduce in them. It was a rabbi’s intention that his followers reproduce him in the way they lived and what they taught — his yoke.

Jesus is the head of His body, the church, but the church had not yet come into being because He had not yet died and the Holy Spirit had not yet been given. On the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell on the believers, the church was born and began to reproduce. Jesus was telling the man that he would have to wait until He, the head and the church, the body came together to become one so that He could begin reproducing Himself through people.

It is not clear why Jesus discouraged one and called another. Was it a test to gauge the sincerity and determination of each individual?

The second man had an excuse for not following Him immediately. It was not that his father’s funeral was imminent. A year after a body had been placed in a tomb the bones were removed and reburied in an ossuary, a box in which they were stored to make room in the tomb for another family member. This man was waiting to place his father’s bones in their permanent resting place, and that could be months away. He was putting off following Jesus indefinitely.

Jesus saw through his excuse and warned him not to waste his opportunity. Burying bones could be done at any time and by those who had no interest in following Him.

The third man had another kind of excuse. Going home to say goodbye to the family was not about giving each one a hurried kiss and then catching up with Jesus. It involved a long, drawn-out farewell, homesickness and regret and then trying to find Him when He has long since moved on.

Jesus is not interested in having people follow Him reluctantly with one eye on what they have left behind. He wants those who throw in their lot with him wholeheartedly without giving a thought to the family from whom they have walked away. Although family ties are precious and important, they must take second place behind our loyalty to Jesus because He calls us to participate in the life of a family far bigger and with a destiny more glorious than any earthly family.

Are you following with gladness or regret?